Visionary and classified Architecture

Everyone knows Le Corbusier. Baptized the "crackpot" in Marseille where he built the Cité Radieuse, Charles Edouard Jeanneret-Gris, called Le Corbusier, wished that his work be protected in its entirety and it is in Firminy that he left his will.

Friend of the mayor of that time, Eugène Claudius-Petit, who was also Minister of Reconstruction in 1946, he drew up architectural ensemble for the little town on the Loire, in 1954. This included an Arts and Youth Centre, a municipal stadium, a swimming pool, the Saint-Pierre church, the construction of which lasted forty years before being finished, and a housing unit.

This latter is the largest and the very last one that the Master built and it includes every concept Le Corbusier loved. He said: «it is necessary to build the city in the sun, it is necessary to build it in the light. It is necessary to build it within the surrounding nature. It commands our town planning. It is necessary to build it with dignity and it commands our architecture. It is necessary to build with simplicity, because we are poor... »

Facades are free, stilts are present, as usual, in his housing projects, the orientation follows the curve of the sun and it integrates a school and a roof terrace, with an open-air theatre and lots of greenery.

The Saint-Pierre Church will henceforth be used as an antenna of the Contemporary Art Museum of Saint-Etienne, to notably welcome exhibitions.

Slideshow

Video: Le Corbusier Heritage in Firminy on rhonealpes.tv