SOME/WHERE : 'CITE RADIEUSE' MARSEILLE, FRANCE / LE CORBUSIER
The story is set in Marseille between 1947 and 1951, when Charles-Edouard Jeanneret (best known as Le Corbusier) could progressively watch - being erected from the surface of this dry soil - the old-fashioned human scaled vision of what he would conceptualize a "Habitat System". Affectionately nicknamed "La Maison du Fada" (The House of the Crackpot) by south of France locals, it fully seizes Le Corbu's inheritage for international architecture. Seen through the lense of photographer Elise Toïde, is an aesthetical reinterpretation filled with sci-fi minimalism. A composite piece of art based on this grayish concrete structure containing 337 apartments of 23 different types.
Another Architectural Spacetime
Post-WW2 was a real need for innovation - making the people dream, gathering them to live together, working with the barest materials on tough financial schemes and re-thinking the extension of the biggest cities - fully embodied by the Cité Radieuse as thought by Le Corbusier and his teams. Le Corbusier would himself declare that "a house is a machine for living" - so would the vision of this imaginary amphibious spaceship. Landed on earth early 50s, it could somehow find its way through the undulating landscape until the closest body of water before a safety ignition system would contact and have it vanishing in the cosmos.
The Manned Spacecraft & the Extra-Modulor
Dignified heir of Leonardo da Vinci - the full conceptualization is based on a system baptized Modulor - an obvious Vitruvian Man derivative enforcement. Mainly made up by the Master in a crave for universality - intending to overcome the two measurement systems that divide the planet - it is also a vow to the well-being of manhood. Modulor thus is a system calculated over the golden ratio - with scale following Fibonacci numbers adapted to human measurements.
Obsessed by the needs of humanity, Le Corbu would arrange its interiors by precisely defining the areas of accessibility and facilitating everyday in-house actions by lowering the efforts.
would arrange its interiors by precisely defining the areas of accessibility and facilitating everyday in-house actions by lowering the efforts.
Travelling Through Present Days
Initially thought as a vertical village - filled with interior streets, a daily, a library, a hotel, a school and a nursery - the roof used to be a public area filled with a pool & playground and 360° vision over the valley. On this open Air Space is now settled the MAMO Audi talents award. Created by Ora Ito, this laboratory where science and creation meet, offer young and established talents a place of exhibition and sharing.
Le Corbusier's consideration about architecture finds its logical evolution - "You employ stone, wood and concrete, and with these materials you build houses and palaces. That is construction. Ingenuity is at work. But suddenly you touch my heart, you do me good, I am happy and I say: "This is beautiful." That is Architecture. Art enters in." - not only Art entered in, Art is now on top.
Photography by Elise Toïdé & Text by Charlotte Robert | S/TUDIO