UNITE D’HABITATION A MARSEILLE. 1950.

Souillac / Mulhouse: Le Point, 1950
26 x 19.5cm, 58pp. Boards with printed dustjacket. First edition of this monograph on the architect’s keynote development and prime symbol of his idealist urbanist project which was conceived by him as a “vertical village”. The concrete look of the massive construction predated the new brutalist look of the late 50s / 60s albeit the texture on the outside walls was less uniform as wood was used to shape the setting mixture and the markings of the wall reflect that. Le Corbusier expected up to 1,600 people to settle in the building and integral to the project was a shopping street internally positioned half-way up the building: quite a radical idea in the 1940s. This book catalogues the project from conception to final build and is illustrated in b/w throughout with images of the drawings, the actual building work and the final completed project. The dust jacket here is somewhat rubbed around all the edges with some small tears and abrasions at the corners but internally this is VG apart from some brown spotting to the unprinted inside boards. A scarce publication.
LAID IN:
A contemporary (albeit undated) newspaper clipping which prints the views of the French Ministere de la Reconstruction M. Claudius Petit on the Marsaille project. A bit browned.