Le corbusier famous buildings
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BIOGRAPHY
In 1946-1947, he travelled to the United States to conduct a fact-finding mission and took part in the choice of a site for the United Nations headquarters. He completed the Doctor CurutchetHouse in Argentina (1949), the Museum of Western Art in Tokyo (1957), continued his work in Chandigarh and in Ahmedabad built the villas Sarabhai (1951) and Shodan (1951), as well as the Mill Owners Association Building (1951) and the City Museum (1951). He also built the Carpenter Centre for Visual Arts on the Harvard Campus in Cambridge, Massachusets (1961), his only North American realization, and in 1962 he received a commission for an exhibition pavilion from Heidi Weber in Zurich, Switzerland, completed after his death.
In France, in addition to the unités d’habitation, he built a factory in Saint-Dié (1946-1950) and the two Jaoul Houses in Neuilly (1951), launching a new architectural trend named Brutalism by the art historian Reyner Banham.
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Unité d'habitation
Marseille, France, 1945-1952
« The origin of this research […] goes back to my visit to the Charterhouse of Ema near Florence, in 1907. I saw, in this musical landscape of Tuscany, a modern city crowning the hill […] each cell has a view of the plain, and opens onto a small, completely enclosed garden below.
I thought I would never be able to come across such a cheerful interpretation of the habitation [...] This "modern city" dates from the fifteenth century. The radiant vision stayed with me forever. »
Commission
In the aftermath of the Second World War, the government’s priority was rehousing, reconstruction and finally redevelopment of the territory. In Marseille destruction was widespread: the ruins extended over close to 25 acres; some 3,600 buildings had been destroyed and 10,800 partially damaged.
On July 20, 1945, the Minister of Reconstruction and Urbanism Raoul Dautry commissioned Le Corbusier to construct a collective building. Passing from the Maison Dom-ino to the Radiant City, via the Vill
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‘Cité Radieuse’ of Le Corbusier
A ‘must-see’ of Marseille
A new housing unit system
This building is the work of the Swiss architect Charles-Edouard Jeanneret, better known as Le Corbusier. It is the first of five ‘Unité d’Habitation’ and was built between 1947 and 1952.
This vertical garden city is a set of individual apartments mounted on stilts and built as a collective structure. It was designed as a proof of concept for a new housing system. The ‘Cité radieuse’ accommodates 337 apartments of 23 different types, all of which provided comfortable and modern accommodation for the time.
A unique concept
In addition to these individual spaces, there are numerous “home extensions” designed to stimulate a new kind of collective living within the Cité radieuse. A lively place, the Cité radieuse offers visitors a wide range of shops and services.
–Two interior shopping streets, 3rd and 4th streets, feature a Ruptures&Imbernon bookshop, a bar-restaurant : Le Ventre de l’Architecte, a 3* hotel : Le Corbusie
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