Unite d'habitation built as a remedy of "la maladie des villes", architecture becomes the city. An opportunity for Le Corbusier to put into practice his ideas on social integration and the relationship between a high density housing development and the larger community around it.

Le Corbusiers concept was to create a sense of intensely private, family housing within a larger community, the idea going back to the experience of his first visit to the Carthusian monastery of Galuzzo, which made him "conscious of the harmony which results from the interplay of individual and collective life, when each reacts favourably upon the other. Individual and collectivity comprehended as fundamental dualism. But its success derived from the fact that the project had what Le Corbusier called an "appropriate size," that is it had a large enough critical mass for its communal functions to work efficiently and economically.

Le Corbusier chose the ocean liner, which housed, fed, and entertained thousands of passengers in a very restricted space, as the design paradigm for his new concept of communal housing. He undertook to adapt many of his features, from the organization of space to the organization of people's lives within it, to this project.

To make this project economically feasible, he had to work on a very tight scale. Le Corbusier was able to design extremely tight but efficient cells for his high-density housing by adopting the minimal dwelling space of 14m² per occupant proposed at the 1930 Brussels International Congress of Modern Architecture (CIAM). Le Corbusier posed the inevitable question: "Will it be possible to live comfortably on the proposed basis of 14m² of floorspace per occupant?" He answered it by returning to the example of luxury liner staterooms -which took up considerably less space- , as proof of it's viability, without however noting in his argument that residency on a ship was only temporary.

The building consists of 17 floors of which 15 are residential floors, housing some 1600 inhabitants in 337 apartments. Floor 7 and 8 are communal levels, where we find commercial services to provide in daily needs such as shopping, laundry, catering, medical offices and hotel-rooms (for residents 'guests). A public "exterior" gathering place was fitted with large windows. The roof, "deck of the ship" offers place for recreation and relaxation in its gymnasium, 300m track, outdoor stage, and children's play area.

In contrast with these communal, public services, the apartments are strictly private. The apartments are situated around interior streets that provide access to the apartments at the kitchen-level. Because of these interior streets at every third level, it's possible to let the apartments face nature at both sides, which adds to the light- and ventilation-quality of the apartments. Each unit has a mezzanine level as well as a double height space against one fully glazed wall. The units are offset in this pattern, forming a series of vertical interlocking "L"-shapes, each sandwiching a corridor.

Less quality is found in the "interior streets", which are dark, and aren't very pleasant to stay. The only light-sources are the lights above every front-door. Le Corbusier intended to define the building as a neighbourhood. To support this intention the doors, mail-boxes and delivery-boxes are all coloured, in this way all "houses" in the "neighbourhood" will have an own identity. Every "street" has it's own colour of delivery-boxes, in this way the floors become recognisable.

Remarks

• Building community towards the outside community; closed off, self-sufficient commune rather than an integrated part of the community.
• Different needs for different times; the well fit design of the kitchen was modified by nowadays inhabitants, "dishwashers and freezers instead of the original ice compartments stocked every day by suppliers from the interior streets.

Some of the communal facilities became less important, with individual washing machines, for example, supplanting the need for laundry rooms.

The demographics have changed, with more affluent professionals coming in, and the current generation's demand for larger spaces has been met by some residents who have bought two adjacent units and joined them together.

• Building towards the city, absolutely neglecting the urban structure.

Bibliography

Le Corbusier, "inside the machine for living"

George H. Marcus

The Monacelli press inc., 2000

Le Corbusier l'unite d'habitation de Marseille

Jacques Sbriglio, collab. De Jean-Louis Parisis, Monique Reyre, Jean-Marc Gauthier

Marseille: Editions Parentheses, 1992

Moderne Architectuur, een kritische geschiedenis

Kenneth Frampton

Sun, 1992