Firminy, France
Mission Title: A Le Corbusier Mine
Mission By: Michele Nastasi, Nina Bassoli
Mission Finished on Date: 19-07-2008
SCRIPT
- Interview mayor Marc Petit and ask him about the town's relationship with Corbusier. Did the town really benefit of the functionality of his buildings or was it more his fame reflecting on tourism?
- Take a look at the Espace Le Corbusier. Show the way the architect's work is celebrated and ask the people – both workers and visitors
- what they think about his works in town.
- Check out the Unité d'Habitation and find out what is it used for, interviewing tenants and passers by. How many people live there? Who owns it? How many come visit the building?
- Finally visit the Saint
- Pierre church. Do they hold mass inside of it or is it just used as a museum and a touristic attraction?
TRAVEL BAG
What happens when a building loses its functionality and becomes an attraction?
Le Corbusier's works, especially the housing-related ones, are at once saluted as innovational and revolutionary, but also critiqued as cold and sterile, compact ghettos dividing social classes and public opinions. The Swiss-born architect's Unités d'Habitation have been hotly debated, and they've influenced some of the most controversial housing structures built after World War II, but good or bad, they embody some of the most distinctive traits of modernist architecture. The Indian town of Chandigarh, whose urban planning the architect was commissioned to lead, and the French Firminy, where several Corbusier-branded buildings are concentrated, are still a recurring subject of architecture-related conversations.
A former mining town, Firminy was known for its poor standards and bad living conditions before mayor Claudius-Petit stepped in and, being a supporter of Le Corbusier's theories on housing, called the architect to create a bunch of brand new buildings in town. The new urban installments were called Firminy-Vert and included three unités, a cultural center, a stadium and a church. Administrations changed and eventually only one unité, the cultural center and the Saint-Pierre church were actually built, not without problems. The church in particular took decades to complete, between funding issues and alternate support by the officials, and now hosts a gallery space for the Museum of Modern Art in Saint-Etienne. The unité wasn't less troubled and suffered from underuse, leading to changes in its administration and the closing of some of its facilities. Nevertheless, it has become an architectural attraction. Today it looks like Firminy-Vert stands more as a Corbusier shrine than as a demonstration of the effectivity of his ideas.
Mission Report
Discussing the work of Le Corbusier in Firminy means talking about the shift from a world of ethical production (regarding work, values, architecture) to a new, ambiguous and pervading system of aesthetic consumption.
Looking at this small ex-industrial town, which in the 60's was supposed to double its population and now appears barely empty and deserted, we see a question mark as far as the aims of architects as crafters of a new society are concerned - a society based on democratic ideals, which is turning out to be a failure.
The town of Firminy Vert is tiny, tidy, clean and empty (is it because of the season?). The "Eglise St. Pierre", completed in 2006, is a magnific exercise in the use of light, colours and concrete casts, but is almost only used for tourist visits (could it be more crowded if converted in a mosquee?). Half of the "Unitè d'Habitation" is closed, as well as the marvellous “Ècole Maternelle et Primaire”.
This is the shape those ideals took, and these are the results: many buckets are scattered around the "Maison de la Culture" to collect the raindrops seeping in from the roof. We look at this new coloured constellation and we love it as a new piece of art.
Michele Nastasi, Nina Bassoli
