Hasta La Ideas

World Heritage Corb: Le Corbusier’s Unité d’Habitation in Marseille is one of French-Swiss architect’s most recognised buildings, and is the last in our series exploring the 17 of his projects added to UNESCO’s World Heritage List (+ slideshow).

The apartment complex in the French city – also known as Cité Radieuse – is the first of the architect’s experimental developments created across Europe.

Widespread destruction during the second world war triggered an urgent need for accommodation in France, and Le Corbusier was commissioned by the government to “demonstrate a new art of building to transform housing”.

The architect, whose vanguard designs interpreted the house as a “machine for living”, took on the challenge with enthusiasm. The building he envisioned would act as a vertical city encompassing every human need.

He had already devised other large-scale housing schemes. For this project, he combined many of the principles used in his previous buildings.

For example, his 1932 Immeuble Clarté, in Geneva, features a double-loaded corridor system used to access the apartments. A similar system was employed in the Cité Radieuse, in which a single corridor serves four floors.

Le Corbusier also employed his signature exposed board-marked concrete structure, which he had realised would reduce construction costs.

This strategy was used in earlier factory designs, where cost efficiency was paramount. For example, the Claude et Duval Hoisery in Saint-Dié, France was also built with rough concrete “béton brut” – which informed the term Brutalism used to define this style of architecture.

Other features, such as the rooftop terrace reserved for outdoor activities and the ground plane raised on pilotis, were featured in most of Le Corbusier’s designs prior to the Unité d’Habitation.

They can be observed in many projects, from the iconic Villa Savoye to lesser-known buildings like the Cité Frugès worker’s housing outside Bordeaux.

Ultimately, the Marseille project embodied all of the architect’s ideas about design, and served as an example of a new housing typology. Le Corbusier would go on to build five other housing units based on this template, in Nantes-Rezé, Berlin, Briey and Firminy.

Other Le Corbusier projects that were added last month to UNESCO’s World Heritage list include the Ronchamp Chapel, which features curved lines and a swooping roof, and a house in Argentina that the architect designed without ever visiting the site.

Photography is by Catrina Beevor.

The post Cité Radieuse combines elements from many of Le Corbusier’s previous designs appeared first on Dezeen.

De l’Egypte on connaît surtout les monuments et le glorieux passé, mais que sait-on des Egyptiens d’aujourd’hui? Avec cette série de clichés pris un peu partout, à Alexandrie, au Caire ou à Nuba, Ahmed Gaber nous montre son pays à travers ses yeux. Il réussit à capturer très naturellement des scènes de vies et les visages animés de ses sujets. Vous pouvez découvrir la série complète sur Behance.

On Thursday, Dwayne Wade led off his portion of The Undefeated’s special town hall conversation about gun violence in Chicago by telling moderator Jemele Hill that his experience growing up in the city “was a lot of us killing us.” On Friday, a most horrific confirmation that this is still the case occurred.

It was 3:30 p.m. in the afternoon. Nykea Aldridge, 32, was pushing a baby stroller and on her way to the Dulles School of Excellence to register some of her other four children for the school year. The man she was walking with was targeted; she was shot in the head and arm; she died, later, at the hospital.

Wade tweeted his reaction Friday. A day after he offered, arguably, the very best description of the root problem during his portion of The Undefeated town hall. Said Wade:

“You try to come in, as an individual, and say, ‘OK, I have a foundation, I want to do something. What is the problem in the community?’”

“And I think it goes way back. I think it goes back to the Great Migration. I think that back then, when jobs were dried up, when we weren’t privileged to certain high educations, to even healthy foods. I think at that moment, at that time, I think we started to turn on each other. And we kind of adopted that mentality that, it’s about me surviving. And we still live that today.”

“It’s like, ‘I don’t want to tell no one else the information and knowledge I have, because I don’t want this person to be bigger or better than me.’ And that’s the mentality our community has taken. It goes way back. That’s why I think it’s important for all of us to help each other, to go back, to say, ‘You know what, where did this start, how did this start, and let’s see whether we can change there.’”

“And not try to be one individual. Not be ways or a foundation, and try to do one rally or speak about myself. It’s about a collective group, it’s about a whole coming together, and understanding that it’s deep-rooted. This is something that didn’t start today. This is something that is not going to end tomorrow. But this is something we can start the conversation, we can start the work today. And hopefully eventually, we can stop it.”

Images via: newseum.org

Learn the proper technique to wrap all your cables to prevent knots and damage. The Roadie Wrap is the professional way to wrap all your cables…(Read…)

1. Prince’s Paisley Park to Open to the Public
Most people will remember exactly where they were when they heard that His Royal Badness, Prince, passed away. The tragic news then led to many wondering what would happen to his immense backlog of……

Continue Reading…