The Inhabitable Ocean Liner

After its opening in 1952, several inhabitants of Le Corbusier's Cité Radieuse compare the long interior corridors to those of an immense ocean liner. The suspended streets, standardized cabins, and collective life give the building an almost maritime atmosphere. The building was supposed to function as a veritable modern machine for living.

Built in Marseille between 1947 and 1952, the Cité Radieuse is Le Corbusier's attempt to reinvent collective housing after the war. In a single giant structure, he brings together apartments, shops, school, and common terrace, connected by long interior circulations he calls "streets." Very quickly, inhabitants see another image there, that of an ocean liner. After its opening in 1952, several inhabitants of Le Corbusier's Cité Radieuse compare the long interior corridors to those of an immense ocean liner.

The massive concrete, narrow corridors, and modular housing indeed evoke the cabins of a modern ship — an assumed kinship, since Le Corbusier admires transatlantic liners as models of functional efficiency. Each space is calculated according to his proportions system, the "Modulor," to shape a new way of living together in the industrial age. The suspended streets, standardized cabins, and collective life give the building an almost maritime atmosphere.

The experience seduces some residents by its futuristic side as much as it repels others by its almost mechanical coldness, and the Cité Radieuse establishes itself as one of the most influential and most discussed buildings of European modernism. The building was supposed to function as a veritable modern machine for living.