4 unités LC - Architecture Insights

22 As the majority of apartments stretch the width of the building on one
level, this east-west orientation also facilitates natural ventilation. This
ventilation, however, is equally supplemented by a communal mechanical
ventilation system extracting vapours from the kitchen and bathrooms of
each apartment. The exhaust tower for the system forms one of the most
recognisable sculptural features on the roof terrace. (See image, p. ? of this
thesis.) A diagram and description of the system appears in Boesiger, W. text
by Le Corbusier, Le Corbusier: 1938 – 1946, Volume 4 of l’Œuvre Complète,
Girsberger, Zurich, 1946, p. 191.
23 Only the Unité d’habitation in Firminy-Vert varied in the use of these
colours, where the loggias were painted using a combination of only red, blue
and white. This colour scheme had been selected after Le Corbusier’s death.
24 Le Corbusier’s original theory of ‘polychromy’, as used in the ‘Quartiers
Modernes Frugès’, claimed that the painting of external surfaces in different
colours would break down the mass of the building due to the nature of certain
colours to either blend into or jump out from their setting. (Boesiger, W. +
Stonorow, O., (Ed.), text by Le Corbusier, Le Corbusier et Pierre Jeanneret:
Œuvre Complète 1910 – 1929, Volume 1 of l’Œuvre Complète, Girsberger,
Zurich, 2nd Ed., 1974, p. 85) Here, however, in the case of the ‘Unités’, its
use is more as a means of adding variety and life to the otherwise dull grey
facades, and, as Le Corbusier himself even admitted, to hide certain faults in
the concrete. (Ragot, Gilles + Dion, Mathilde, Le Corbusier en France:
Réalisations et Projets, Elecla Moniteur, Paris, 1st Ed., 1987, p.158.)
25 The wood texture imprinted onto the concrete surfaces of the building was
a result of the rough timber formwork that was used to cast the concrete
elements. Le Corbusier described this bare textured nature as ‘the skin’ of the
building, aging and weathering as human skin does – concrete being “the most
faithful of materials” (Boesiger, W., text by Le Corbusier, Le Corbusier:
Œuvre Complète 1946 – 1952, Volume 5 of l’Œuvre Complète, Girsberger,
Zurich, 7th Ed., 1976, p. 184).
26 Le Corbusier, The Marseilles Block, trans. Geoffrey Sainsbury, The Harvill
Press, London, 1953, p. 52; also La cité radieuse de Briey-en-Forêt, Regional
Conservation of Historical Monuments, Direction of Cultural Affairs,
Lorraine, Metz, 1994; and Bory, Christophe, Le Site Le Corbusier, Firminy,
Syndicat d’Initiative de Firminy et Environs, Firminy, 1995, p. 21.
87 88
27 Bory, Christophe, Le Site Le Corbusier, Firminy, Syndicat d’Initiative de
Firminy et Environs, Firminy, 1995, p. 21. These apartment dimensions were
in fact determined by Le Corbusier well before the design of the ‘Unité
d’habitation’, described in an essay entitled A new classification of town
building, a new dwelling unity (Boesiger, W., Le Corbusier et Pierre
Jeanneret: Œuvre Complète 1929 – 1934, Volume 2, text by Le Corbusier,
Les Editions d’Architectures, Zurich, Switzerland, 7th ed., 1964, p. 121).
28 A sliding partition (that actually doubles as a blackboard) separates the two
children’s bedrooms. The partition may be slid back to open half the length
of the dividing wall allowing greater flexibility of space. Despite this
flexibility, however, the true narrowness of the bedrooms cannot be ignored,
described by some as “hardly more than cupboards” (Hughes, Robert, The
Shock of the New – Art and the Century of Change, Thames and Hudson Ltd.,
London, 1992, p. 190).
29 Le Corbusier in fact used the comparison of the ‘Unité’ to an ocean liner
to illustrate his ideas of collective living (see Curtis, William J. R., Le
Corbusier: Ideas and Forms, Phaidon Press Ltd., London, 2nd Ed., 1992,
p.173). Interestingly, the comparison is also suggested in certain aesthetic
qualities such as the timber paneling and raised curved-edge doors to the toilet
and bathroom. Although these associations seems appropriate in the context
of the first ‘Unité’ set in the port city of Marseille, in the cases of the other
‘Unités’, however, set very much in in-land towns with no relation to the
ocean whatsoever, the association does seem rather incongruous.
30 The brise-soleil was first developed by Le Corbusier in 1933 to protect the
south and west facades of a housing project in Algiers from extended hours of
solar penetration. See Boesiger, W., text by Le Corbusier, Le Corbusier: 1938
– 1946, Volume 4 of l’Œuvre Complète, Girsberger, Zurich, 1946, p. 108;
also Boesiger, W., Le Corbusier et Pierre Jeanneret: Œuvre Complète 1929 –
1934, Volume 2, (text by Le Corbusier), Les Editions d’Architectures, Zurich,
Switzerland, 7th ed., 1964, p. 171.
31 Although the dimensions of the brise-soleil were intended to be directly
related to these solar angles, calculated according to the latitude of the
location and the resulting angles of the sun at different times of the year
(Boesiger, W., text by Le Corbusier, Le Corbusier: 1938 – 1946, Volume 4 of
l’Œuvre Complète, Girsberger, Zurich, 1946, p. 65), their depth in the case of