
I was lucky enough to visit Marseille during the last week, which gave me the opportunity to take a second tour around one of the iconic buildings of the twentieth century, La Cité Radieuse (the radiant city). During my first visit in 2008, I had stayed in the hotel located within the building, which had been sensitively renovated and included pieces of furniture designed by the architect, Le Corbusier.
Completed in 1952, La Cité Radieuse was the first of Le Corbusier’s Unité d’Habitation (collective housing). It soon became an emblem for post war brutalist housing blocks around the world. The many ingenious concepts woven into the design of the building resulted in bland brutalist architecture when applied elsewhere indiscriminately of place, culture and climate. Standing at the base of La Cité Radieuse confronted by its scale, materiality, diversification within an overall unity, one recognises that this a building which is anything but bland.
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