Le Corbusier’s 20th century vision of future urban living in Marseille
When the mid-20th century French architect, Le Corbusier, conceived La Cité Radieuse in Marseille, it was meant to be a harmonious world contained into a single building, with individual living units, ample communal areas, convenience shops, a school and a rooftop terrace. The architect’s vision, embodied in the 1951 solid concrete block euphemistically called the Radiant City, was to be his answer to relentless urbanisation. In his view, individual houses were a waste of precious urban space that no longer fitted the 20th century way of life. Instead, urban dwellers could live in uniform modular units adapted to their specific needs (whether single or in a family) and used mainly for eating and sleeping. For other activities, they could use common spaces, such as a lounge, a library, a gymnasium or a swimming-pool. Le Corbusier’s motto was functional design for efficient use of space which he translated into vertical living. More than half a century later, his vision has become the global norm with more and more of us packed into box units inside tall towers. Following in his footsteps, today’s architects are faced with a new problem resulting from his rationalist vision: how to make this type of dwelling less isolating for the human beings who inhabit them.
I had the opportunity to stay in one of Le Corbusier’s unité d’habitation in la Cité Radieuse while passing through Marseille. I had visited the building over a decade ago, however, staying in a flat with a family who had lived there for 30 years gave me a new prospective on this architectural concept. My first impression was one of tightness. It felt restricted. All the flat units in the building were of exactly the same dimension regardless of the family size. They were uniformly laid out on two levels with the living area on one and the sleeping quarters on the other. My room on the upper level was a long and narrow rectangle that could only fit a single bed. If I stretched my arms, I could almost touch both walls. Next to it, was a similar room of exactly the same size with a shared balcony at the end. If mine, I would have wanted to knock down the partition wall in-between to create a more open space. However, in Le Corbusier’s design, these bedrooms were meant for the children regardless of their number (if many, bunkbeds could be used). In contrast, the masters bedroom was in the mezzanine overlooking the living room, so rather open.
When I came back that night and walked up to my room, my host was reading in bed with her door open. She was rather relaxed about it and said goodnight as if I was a member of her family even though I had only met her a few hours earlier. She lived with her husband and only son and was renting out their spare room to passing lodgers on airbnb. I suppose the layout of the flat made for natural family planning with such a lack of privacy for parents. The shower cabin (reminiscent of a cruise ship) had no door either but just a thin partition and a light outside indicating if it was in use. In a now antiquated way of living, the washbasin was inside the bedroom and the toilet on the landing. The most interesting feature, which made me understand the architect’s genius, was the fact that these modular units were stacked on top of each other and overlapping through the width of the building in order to have windows on both sides. To fully get the picture, one has to imagine a building not being built as independent layers of horizontal floors, but as interlocking blocks vertically put on top of each other like when using lego bricks of a different length. That was truly visionary in the mid-20th century. In the functional spirit of Le Corbusier, those flats worked best with a minimalist way of living, which did not agree with my host’s character. Every single corner of space was over-utilized. She indulged in her clutter and happily admitted that she had far too many objects and furniture to comply with the architect’s spartan vision. Towards the end of his life, he himself had no personal possession and lived alone in a tiny beach house he had designed in Roquebrune St Martin near Nice.
Besides those individual units, the third floor was specifically designed to host shops, offices and a hotel/restaurant. It had an imposing double height ceiling, similar in concept to an atrium in a modern shopping centre without the buzz. I had a drink at the bar which seemed frozen in time, untouched as it was since the construction of the complex. A great master like Stanley Kubrick could have turned it into compelling cinematography. I also visited the roof-top terrace, probably the most visual feature with its wide open space, unique mix of geometric and curvy lines, and great panoramic view of the city and the sea. What was lacking in the Cité Radieuse was a feeling of life, of children running around, of people going about their business and of shops thriving in their commercial activity. Apart from a large group of Japanese tourists, I only encountered a handful of people, a group of architects and students discussing architecture in the bar, in other words people in the know. It seems that Le Corbusier’s idea of village life has not fully succeeded. Maybe the nursery school is still used by local families, but the grocery shops have closed down. The bakery is the last of the Mohicans but I was told the owner is desperate to sell and very grumpy with customers as a result. Maybe, we, 21st century individuals, struggle with communal living as when put in a box we stay in that box and only escape through a screen.
