Unité d'Habitation

Residential block (18 stories high) in Marseille, France, that expressed Le Corbusier's ideal of urban family lodging. Completed in 1952, it is a vertical mixed-use community, with a shopping floor halfway up and other communal facilities on the roof. Two-story living rooms make for efficient use of volumes and permit the use of a “skip-stop” system in which elevators stop on every other floor. Each unit has front and rear balconies with sun protection provided by Le Corbusier's brise-soleil. The concrete screen pierced with differently sized openings evokes tracery.