What is the Unité d'Habitation?
The Unité d'Habitation is a residential building in Marseille containing 337 apartments designed to house 1,600–1,700 residents. But it's far more than an apartment block: it's a complete vertical community with shops, a hotel-restaurant, educational facilities, and recreational spaces — Le Corbusier's vision of a "machine for living" applied to an entire society rather than a single house.
On 20 July 1945, France's Minister of Reconstruction and Urbanism Raoul Dautry commissioned Le Corbusier to design collective housing for Marseille's post-war displaced population. After several proposals, the final design was adopted in March 1947. Construction began immediately, and the building was inaugurated on 14 October 1952, when Minister Eugène Claudius-Petit awarded Le Corbusier the Legion of Honour.
The project represented the culmination of Le Corbusier's twenty-five years of research into housing, collective living, and the relationship between architecture and nature. From his Dom-Ino structural system (1914) through his theoretical Ville Radieuse (Radiant City) proposals, Le Corbusier had been developing ideas about how modern architecture could solve urban housing problems. The Marseille Unité was the first opportunity to realise these ideas at full scale.
The building was initially planned as rental housing but became a condominium in 1954. Despite mockery from locals who called it "La Maison du Fada" (The Crazy Guy's House), residents loved it. Several original 1952 occupants still live there, and the building has attracted middle-class professionals — particularly teachers and architects — who appreciate its spatial innovation and architectural significance.
Facts panel
Residential building (Unité d'Habitation / La Cité Radieuse) in Marseille, France. Designed 1945–47, built 1947–52.
- Architect: Le Corbusier (Charles-Édouard Jeanneret, 1887–1965)
- Design team: Shadrach Woods, George Candilis, André Wogenscky
- Client: French Ministry of Reconstruction and Urbanism
- Commissioned: 20 July 1945 (Raoul Dautry, Minister)
- Final design adopted: March 1947
- Construction: 1947–52
- Inauguration: 14 October 1952
- Location: 280 Boulevard Michelet, 13008 Marseille, France
- Setting: 2.8-hectare wooded park
- Dimensions: 135m long × 24m wide × 56m high (18 storeys including rooftop facilities)
- Residents: 1,600–1,700 people (original capacity)
- Apartments: 337 units in 23 different configurations (from studio to family apartments for up to 10 people)
- Structure: "Bottle rack" system — independent reinforced concrete frame of posts and beams, cast in situ, resting on seventeen massive pilotis
- Materials: Béton brut (raw reinforced concrete), painted loggias, Jean Prouvé's steel stairs and aluminium kitchen counters
- Modulor: Entire building designed using Le Corbusier's proportional system based on human dimensions and golden ratio
- Apartment types: Mostly duplex (two-storey) units; majority dual-aspect (through-building); interlocking like puzzle pieces around central corridors
- Interior "streets": Eight corridors on every third floor (because duplexes interlock), serving three floors each
- Facilities:
Floors 7–8: Shopping street (rue marchande) with bookshop, hotel (21 rooms, now open to public), restaurant "Le Ventre de l'Architecte," gallery, mini-market, launderette
Rooftop: Gymnasium (since 2013, MaMo contemporary art centre), nursery school (3 classes, still operating), 300m running track, shallow paddling pool, open-air theatre, sculptural ventilation stacks - Furniture/fittings: Charlotte Perriand (built-in storage, fitted kitchens — 321 of 337 units retain original Type 1 Cuisine Atelier Le Corbusier), Jean Prouvé (oak stairs, window frames, cast aluminium kitchen counters, metal cells)
- Services: Ducted warm air heating, mechanical ventilation, rubbish chutes, air conditioning
- Designation: Monument Historique (façades listed 1964 at Le Corbusier's instigation; full classification 1986); UNESCO World Heritage Site (2016)
- Fire damage: 9 February 2012 (restored)
- Roof renovation: 2010, 2022
- Current status: Fully inhabited condominium; public areas accessible to visitors
Architect: Le Corbusier
Le Corbusier designed the Unité d'Habitation at the height of his powers, aged 58–65 during construction. By 1947, he had been developing housing typologies for decades but had never built at this scale.
The Marseille Unité represented the realisation of ideas Le Corbusier had been refining since the 1920s:
- His Dom-Ino structural system (1914) — concrete frame independent of walls
- Immeubles-Villas proposals (1922) — apartment buildings with garden terraces
- Ville Radieuse (Radiant City) urban theories (1930s) — buildings in parkland connected by infrastructure
Where the Villa Savoye (1931) demonstrated his Five Points of Architecture for an individual house, the Unité applied these principles to collective housing at urban scale. The building also influenced Le Corbusier's late sculptural work — the rough béton brut surfaces pioneered here would define his subsequent buildings including Notre-Dame du Haut (1955).
For Le Corbusier's full biography, architectural philosophy, and other major works, see our comprehensive Le Corbusier architect guide.
Post-war housing crisis
World War II devastated French cities. Marseille suffered severe bombing, leaving thousands homeless. In 1945, France faced an unprecedented housing shortage requiring rapid, large-scale construction.
Traditional approaches — building individual houses or conventional apartment blocks — couldn't address the scale and urgency of need. Le Corbusier proposed a radically different solution: vertical communities that would provide not just shelter but complete living environments.
The Unité d'Habitation was conceived as a prototype that could be replicated across France and beyond — standardised, industrialised housing that would be efficient to build yet provide high-quality living conditions. Four additional Unités followed: Rezé-Nantes (1948–55), Berlin (1957–58), Briey-en-Forêt (1953–61), and Firminy (1959–67), each adapted to local conditions but sharing the basic concept.
Structure: the "bottle rack" system
The Unité's structural system — which Le Corbusier called the "bottle rack" — consists of an independent three-dimensional grid of reinforced concrete posts and beams, cast in situ. This framework supports everything; interior walls are non-structural.
The building rests on seventeen massive pilotis — chunky concrete columns spaced at double-module intervals. These raise the entire structure above the ground, freeing the park beneath for pedestrians and vehicles to circulate. The pilotis became one of the Unité's most recognisable features: sculptural, powerful, almost anthropomorphic in their muscular presence.
The building's 135-metre length is divided into a regular grid based on the Modulor — Le Corbusier's proportional system combining human dimensions (a 1.83m/6-foot tall figure with raised arm reaching 2.26m) with the golden ratio. Every dimension relates to this system, from overall proportions down to door handles.
Apartments are inserted into this frame as standardised "cells" — three-dimensional units designed to be industrially prefabricated (though in practice, economic constraints meant most were built on-site using traditional methods). These cells are acoustically isolated from each other and from the concrete frame, ensuring privacy despite density.
The apartments: interlocking duplexes
Most of the 337 apartments are two-storey duplexes arranged in an ingenious interlocking pattern. One apartment occupies the space below a corridor level plus the level above it, whilst its neighbour occupies the corresponding spaces on the opposite side. This means pairs of apartments fit together like puzzle pieces around a central corridor.
This arrangement allows corridors on every third floor only — Le Corbusier called these "interior streets" (rues intérieures). Instead of conventional double-stacked corridors on every floor, the Unité has just eight interior streets serving all seventeen residential floors. This dramatically reduces circulation space, making the building more efficient.
Apartment layouts
The 23 different apartment types range from studios for single people to large family units for up to ten people. The "typical" apartment houses four people and measures approximately 65 square metres.
A standard duplex features:
- Lower level: Entrance, compact kitchen (designed like a ship's galley), bedroom under the mezzanine
- Upper level: Double-height living room with full-height glazing opening to loggia (balcony), additional bedrooms
The apartments are narrow (21 metres deep but only 3.6 metres wide) yet feel spacious because of:
- Double-height living spaces creating vertical volume
- Full-width glazing flooding interiors with light
- Dual-aspect layouts (except south-facing units) providing cross-ventilation and views in both directions
Charlotte Perriand's fitted interiors
Furniture designer Charlotte Perriand collaborated with Le Corbusier on the apartments' fitted interiors. She designed modular storage systems with sliding doors that line walls, replacing traditional furniture. Her Cuisine Atelier Le Corbusier Type 1 kitchens — equipped like laboratories with electric cookers, refrigerators, rubbish chutes, and storage racks — were installed in 321 of the 337 units. Many survive today because of their efficient use of space.
Jean Prouvé designed the steel stairs connecting duplex levels and the cast aluminium kitchen counters. These elements demonstrate the integration of industrial design with architecture — the Unité as "machine for living" extended down to the smallest details.
Every apartment has modern amenities that were exceptional for 1952 social housing: running water, central heating (ducted warm air), mechanical ventilation, air conditioning, and individual thermostats. Surface areas are 40–50% larger than typical low-cost housing of the period.
The façades and loggias
The Unité's east, west and south façades present a rhythmic pattern of deeply recessed loggias (balconies) and windows set within the béton brut concrete frame. This grid reveals the building's modular structure whilst creating a complex play of light and shadow.
The loggias are brightly painted in Le Corbusier's signature colours — primary reds, yellows, blues, plus greens — taken from his paintings and architectural polychromy theories. These vibrant accents contrast dramatically with the grey concrete, transforming what could be a monolithic mass into a lively, colourful composition.
Interior streets and collective facilities
The eight interior streets on every third floor function as more than circulation corridors. Le Corbusier envisioned them as genuine streets — places for chance encounters, socialising, and community formation. Residents collect mail and deliveries here; children play; neighbours chat.
Floors 7 and 8 house the rue marchande (shopping street) with:
- Architectural bookshop
- Hôtel Le Corbusier (21 rooms, open to public, allowing non-residents to experience the building)
- Le Ventre de l'Architecte (restaurant/bar — "The Belly of the Architect")
- Art gallery
- Mini-market
- Launderette
- Other shops and services
This "interior street" allows residents to shop, dine, and socialise without leaving the building — reinforcing Le Corbusier's conception of the Unité as a complete vertical city.
The roof terrace
The rooftop transforms into a public garden terrace — perhaps the Unité's most dramatic space. It features:
- Nursery school (3 classes, still operating, with shallow paddling pool for children)
- Gymnasium — since 2013, the MaMo (Marseille Modulor), a contemporary art centre directed by designer Ora-Ïto hosting exhibitions and events
- 300-metre running track circling the rooftop perimeter
- Open-air theatre with stage and sculptural backdrop
- Sculptural ventilation stacks — abstract concrete forms that have become iconic
- Spectacular views of Mediterranean Sea and Marseille
The roof embodies Le Corbusier's principle that rooftops should be used as gardens, returning to residents the ground area occupied by the building's footprint. At the Unité's 1952 inauguration, CIAM (Congrès International d'Architecture Moderne) members held a celebration on the roof. Walter Gropius famously declared: "Any architect who does not find this building beautiful, had better lay down his pencil."
The Modulor
Every dimension of the Unité — from the overall proportions down to door handles — derives from Le Corbusier's Modulor: a proportional system based on human measurements and the golden ratio.
The Modulor uses a 1.83-metre (6-foot) tall human figure with raised arm reaching 2.26 metres as its basis, then applies golden section divisions to generate a complete scale of harmonious proportions. Le Corbusier believed this system would ensure architecture remained human-scaled whilst allowing standardisation and industrialisation.
The 2.26-metre dimension appears repeatedly: ceiling heights, room widths, structural bay spacing — always relating back to human proportions. This creates spaces that feel comfortable and appropriately sized despite the building's massive scale.
Béton brut and the birth of Brutalism
The Unité pioneered the use of béton brut (raw concrete) — reinforced concrete left exposed, showing the texture of timber formwork, without painting or cladding.
Le Corbusier chose béton brut partly for economic reasons (post-war steel shortages made concrete more practical) but recognised its aesthetic and expressive possibilities. The rough surfaces, board marks, and visible construction process gave the building tactile richness and honest material expression.
This approach became the foundation of Brutalism — an architectural movement named after béton brut that dominated institutional and housing architecture from the 1950s through 1970s. The Unité is considered Brutalism's founding work, establishing both its aesthetic language and its social ambitions (high-quality collective housing).
Reception and influence
At inauguration, reactions divided sharply. Locals mocked "La Maison du Fada" as ugly and inhuman. Yet residents were delighted — many 1952 occupants still live there decades later, and the building attracts educated middle-class professionals who appreciate its architectural innovation.
Italian architect Gio Ponti called it "a true monument in the history of French construction" even before completion. The building influenced housing worldwide, spawning countless imitations — some successful (London's Barbican Estate), many disastrous (the failed social housing blocks that gave "Corbusian" architecture a negative reputation).
The Unité itself succeeded because:
- Exceptional build quality (state-funded, no budget constraints)
- Generous apartment sizes (larger than typical social housing)
- Genuine mixed-use community (shops, hotel, school integrated)
- Committed residents (condominium ownership from 1954)
- Ongoing maintenance and care
Many later imitations failed because they copied the form without understanding the social, economic, and spatial conditions that made the original work.
Later Unités and global influence
Le Corbusier built four additional Unités, each adapted to local conditions:
- Rezé-Nantes (1948–55): 294 units, similar to Marseille
- Berlin (1957–58): Modified for German building codes, eliminated Modulor, prefabricated construction
- Briey-en-Forêt (1953–61): Smaller, in forest setting
- Firminy (1959–67): 414 units, all cast in situ
Buildings worldwide drew inspiration: Zagreb's apartment blocks, Warsaw's Polish Academy of Sciences building, Minneapolis's Riverside Plaza, London's Barbican Estate, and countless others. The influence extended beyond housing to educational buildings (Glasgow College of Building and Printing) and other institutional architecture.
Model-maker's lens
The Unité d'Habitation is architecture as urban infrastructure — a massive concrete vessel containing a complete community.
- Focus — the southern narrow façade.
- Detail — the grid of loggias and windows, the chunky pilotis. At model scale, we simplify individual apartments but preserve the overall rhythm, the relationship between solid concrete frame and recessed loggias, the building's powerful massing.
- How it reads at small scale — extraordinarily well, because the architecture is fundamentally about proportion, rhythm, and the relationship between massive structure and modular grid. The building's essential character — monumental yet human-scaled, industrial yet colourful — translates directly to object scale.
- How to display — best viewed from face on.
Modelling the Unité d'Habitation is an exercise in understanding Le Corbusier's vision of collective housing — how reinforced concrete's structural possibilities enabled vertical communities that could provide high-density living whilst maintaining individual privacy and fostering social life. The model captures his revolutionary vision at the scale of an object: housing as infrastructure, architecture as social programme, concrete as urban possibility.
View the Unité d'Habitation architectural model
Frequently asked questions about the Unité d'Habitation
Where is the Unité d'Habitation?
280 Boulevard Michelet, 13008 Marseille, France, set in a 2.8-hectare park in southern Marseille.
When was it built?
Designed 1945–47, constructed 1947–52, inaugurated 14 October 1952.
How many people live there?
Originally designed for 1,600–1,700 residents; still fully inhabited today as a condominium.
How many apartments does it contain?
337 apartments in 23 different configurations, from studios to large family units.
What are the "interior streets"?
Wide corridors on every third floor (eight total) that serve as communal circulation spaces and foster social interaction.
What is on the roof?
Nursery school (still operating), MaMo contemporary art centre (former gymnasium), 300m running track, paddling pool, open-air theatre, sculptural ventilation stacks, spectacular views.
What is the Modulor?
Le Corbusier's proportional system based on human dimensions (1.83m/6-foot figure, 2.26m raised arm reach) and golden ratio, used for all dimensions.
Can I visit?
Yes. Public areas are accessible. Hôtel Le Corbusier offers rooms where you can stay overnight. Guided tours of a historic apartment available through Marseille Tourist Office.
Is it a UNESCO World Heritage Site?
Yes, designated 2016 as part of "The Architectural Work of Le Corbusier.
How many Unités did Le Corbusier build?
Five total: Marseille, Rezé-Nantes, Berlin, Briey-en-Forêt, and Firminy.
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Sources and further reading
- Fondation Le Corbusier — https://fondationlecorbusier.fr/en (Unité d'Habitation documentation)
- UNESCO World Heritage — "The Architectural Work of Le Corbusier" at https://whc.unesco.org
- Marseille Tourism — marseille-tourisme.com/en (visitor information, guided tours)
- Wikipedia — "Unité d'Habitation" at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unité_d'habitation
- Jacques Sbriglio — L'Unité d'Habitation de Marseille (Parenthèses, 1992)
- Jean-Louis Cohen — Le Corbusier, 1887-1965: The Lyricism of Architecture in the Machine Age (Taschen, 2004)
- Kenneth Frampton — Le Corbusier (Thames & Hudson, 2001)
- Flora Samuel — Le Corbusier and the Architectural Promenade (Birkhäuser, 2010)
