Maison 19 rue Le-Corbusier
MonumentHidden Treasure
Maison 19 rue Le-Corbusier, located in Pessac (Gironde), is a modern edifice built in the 19th-20th centuries. The monument is currently closed to visitors.
Key facts
- Type
- autre
- Period
- Modern (19th-20th century)
- Location
- Pessac, Gironde, Nouvelle-Aquitaine
- Visit
- Closed to visitors
- GPS
- 44.7990, -0.6480
- Mérimée Reference
- PA33000251
A jewel of modernism, this house in the Cité Frugès in Pessac illustrates Le Corbusier's radical genius: pure volumes, flat roofs and bright colours that revolutionised workers' housing from 1925 onwards.
History
In the heart of Pessac, on the outskirts of Bordeaux, stands one of the most valuable components of the Cité Frugès, an experimental residential complex designed by Le Corbusier and Pierre Jeanneret between 1924 and 1926. The house at 19 rue Le Corbusier - whose address itself is a tribute to the Swiss master - embodies with rare eloquence the founding principles of modern architecture: ornamental simplicity, constructive rationality and the poetry of pure volumes in the Aquitaine light. What sets this residence apart from the rest of France's heritage is its dual nature: as both an architectural manifesto and an ordinary living space. Designed for workers, it embodies a social utopia that has no equivalent in the history of European public housing. Each rendered façade, each banded window, each accessible roof terrace bears witness to a desire to reconcile the beautiful and the useful, the individual and the collective. Visiting this house is like taking a trip through Le Corbusier's mental laboratory. The interior proportions, calculated according to a standardised but never stifling logic, reveal an acute sense of light: it enters through carefully directed openings, bathing the rooms in an almost Mediterranean clarity unexpected under the Gironde sky. The history of the site can also be seen in its successive layers: the transformations made by the inhabitants over the decades, prior to the restoration campaigns, are themselves a fascinating layer of heritage. The entire district forms a verdant setting, where the houses respond to each other in different ways - staggered houses, stepped houses, arcade houses - creating an urban dialogue that is as coherent as it is varied. The shady, peaceful Rue Le Corbusier is a perfect illustration of the original urban planning ambition: not just a housing estate, but a veritable city in miniature, listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2016 in recognition of Le Corbusier's architectural work.
Architecture
The house at 19 rue Le Corbusier is fully in keeping with the architectural purism theorised by Le Corbusier in the 1920s. Its massing is based on the superimposition and articulation of white or coloured parallelepipeds, devoid of any historicist ornamentation: no cornice, no moulding, no constrained symmetry. The façades, initially rendered in polychrome mineral lime, play with the play of light and shadow created by the sloping balconies, the loggias carved into the mass and the horizontal bands of glazing, an immediately recognisable formal signature. The reinforced concrete load-bearing structure frees the interior partitions entirely of any structural function, allowing rooms to be distributed according to functional needs. The interior space, organised over two levels, combines a living room opening onto a private garden on the ground floor with bedrooms lit from above. The roof terrace, accessible from the attic, transforms the upper surface into an extension of the living space, offering an unobstructed view of the neighbouring roofs and the wooded crown of Pessac. The materials used are deliberately industrial and economical: concrete, hollow brick infill and metal frames for the joinery. This material sobriety contrasts with the chromatic richness of the exterior renderings, which are one of the most distinctive features of the programme: far from being a simple aesthetic choice, colour fulfilled an architectural function for Le Corbusier, shaping the volumes, dissolving the edges or, on the contrary, emphasising them, transforming each house into a three-dimensional painting.
Related Figures
Le Corbusier (Charles-Édouard Jeanneret-Gris) — architecte principal, théoricien du Mouvement ModernePierre Jeanneret — cousin et associé de Le Corbusier, co-concepteur de la Cité FrugèsHenry Frugès — industriel sucrier bordelais, commanditaire et mécène de l'ensembleFernand Léger — peintre cubiste, concepteur des camaïeux colorés des façadesAndré Wogenscky — collaborateur de Le Corbusier impliqué dans les chantiers des années 1920Philippe Boudon — architecte et chercheur, auteur en 1969 de l'étude pionnière sur les transformations de la cité par ses habitants
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Frequently Asked Questions
Where is Maison 19 rue Le-Corbusier located?
Maison 19 rue Le-Corbusier is located in Pessac, Gironde department, Nouvelle-Aquitaine region, France.
When was Maison 19 rue Le-Corbusier built?
Maison 19 rue Le-Corbusier dates back to a period built in the modern era (19th-20th century).
Is Maison 19 rue Le-Corbusier open to visitors?
Maison 19 rue Le-Corbusier is currently closed to visitors.