Unité d’habitation – Le Corbusier – Rezé

The project was born from an order carried by the family house, cooperative of inhabitants gathering workers and foremen attached to the workshops of the port. The financing, ensured by the H.L.M., therefore obliged the strictest economy.

The Housing Unit of Nantes-Rezé benefits from the experience gained in Marseille. Similar in its principles, it is different in its ways of execution and by some novelties. Its artificial floor consists of spans of four poles and no longer two. This may involve a loss of plasticity or elegance, but this solution does not imply degradation. The common services, planned halfway up the building, had to be canceled for lack of budget.

The construction is made of prestressed concrete. There is no proper skeleton and the system "Bouteilles-Bouteiller", evoked on the occasion of the Michelet Unit in Marseille, is replaced by a system of "Shoe Box", which means that each apartment is a box of prestressed concrete placed on the one below and next to its neighbors. Independent of each other, the cells are only a few centimeters apart. Two lead strips are interposed between the upper lower boxes.

From the Housing Unit of Marseille, the pan of glass has been preserved and improved, becoming here the fourth wall of the room.