Cité Frugès de Pessac

The Cité Frugès de Pessac is a housing development located in Pessac, a suburb of Bordeaux, France. It was designed by noted architect Le Corbusier as both an architect and a town planner.[1] It contained some 70 housing units.

Cité Frugès de Pessac
Main street of the Cité Frugès
General information
AddressPessac, France
Completed1926
Design and construction
ArchitectLe Corbusier
References
Official nameCité Frugès de Pessac
CriteriaCultural: i, ii, vi
Reference1321-003
Inscription2016 (40th session)
Area2,179 ha
Buffer zone26,475 ha

The district is one of the 17 architectural works of Le Corbusier listed as UNESCO heritage since 2016.[2]

History

The building was built as experimental housing for workers.

Design and construction

Le Corbusier took into account prevailing social and economic factors, and was determined to build the plan to provide people with low-cost, predetermined, homogeneous cubist structures.

The project originated in 1920 with 10 houses built at Lege, near Pessac, for the father of Henry Fruges, a Bordeaux industrialist and lover of modern architecture.[3] Following this initial phase, the project was extended to 200 houses. Only a quarter of this number were built by 1926. L-C painted panels of brown, blue, yellow and jade green in response to the clients request for "decoration".[4]

The layout consists of :

A terrace of about 8 three storey houses with roof gardens. Behind them is a terrace of houses connected to each other with a concrete arch which provides a sheltered garden. In the middle of the development are the interlocking houses.[5]


Further reading
  • Lived-In Architecture: Le Corbusier's Pessac Revisited by Philippe Boudon

References
  1. Architecture View - LE CORBUSIER'S HOUSING PROJECT- FLEXIBLE ENOUGH TO ENDURE - by Ada Louise Huxtable - NYTimes.com
  2. https://whc.unesco.org/fr/list/1321/
  3. https://www.bordeaux-tourism.co.uk/offre/fiche/cite-fruges-le-corbusier-pessac/PCUAQU033FS0002T
  4. Le Corbusier edited by Willy Boesiger, p.26.
  5. personal visit to Pessac in 1970s

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