4 unités LC - Architecture Insights

95. View fromthe roof terrace
of the ‘Unité’ in Rezé.
The location of the pre-school on the roof of the building, rather
than at ground level, also poses problems, as many of the children
that attend the roof top school hardly ever leave the confines of
the building. 27 And not only is their physical interaction with the
natural environment restricted during their daily lives as a result,
but their visual appreciation of it, as in Marseille, is also not
considered. For again, the concrete barrier surrounding the roof
terrace is of a sufficient height for an adult to appreciate the
surrounding view, but provides no visibility for the children of their
wider surroundings.
Fortunately, however, the school has recently obtained permission
from the managing body to take the children down to the park area
surrounding the building to play when the weather is fine. A rather
belated acknowledgement of the building’s co-operative, that it is
in fact they above the architect that ought to govern their lives with
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96. The entry to the rooftop
pre-school of the ‘Unité’ in
Rezé – the walls dispaying
painted murals by previous
children of the school.
in the building as its inhabitants – recognising the faults of the
design and determining ways solve them. For, after all, as Le
Corbusier himself said, “it is life that is always right and the
architect who is wrong”. 28
But such an acknowledgement is yet to be made in other cases. A
proposal by the teachers to paint the internal side of the barrier
surrounding the terrace, in an attempt to enliven the children’s
uniformly grey concrete playground, was rejected by the building’s
association under the grounds that it would be “uncharacteristic of
Le Corbusier’s style”. 29 But Le Corbusier in fact had a tendency to
frequently paint murals on many of the walls of his designs, 30 and
such restrictions ought perhaps to be reconsidered by those
governing the state of the building. (Especially seeing as murals
painted many years ago, by previous pupils of the school, actually
remain on some of the concrete surfaces near the lift foyer.)