Primary Research — Unité d'Habitation — OUGD601

To better inform the concrete letters, a visit to one of the most influential and greatest pieces of Brutalist architecture seemed fitting. Unité d'Habitation by Charles-Édouard Jeanneret, otherwise known as Le Corbusier.

This building, located Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf, Berlin, Germany is known as 'Corbusierhaus' locally. It is one of four other Unité buildings due its sheer success, the rest of which are located in France, the original in Marseille, in southern France;

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Creating a personal photographic journal (22nd Dec 2016) of this building will assist in creating concrete letters that potentially follow similar ideological guidelines as these buildings. As Le Corbusier is widely known as the 'Father of Brutalism', it was logical to utilise the true meanings of the concrete and incorporate into the letters, thus further emphasising the utopian aspect of the project.

Images:

Study of its 'Modulor' façade the Corbusier profusely used throughout his designs:

'Modulor Man' — Le Corbusier's unit of measurement based off the divine proportion. It is also used throughout the building, and every other building designed by him. This was used to avoid converting imperial into the metric system, but it was also to create a more natural space of which to live in, adapting the dimensions of his buildings to those of the average hight of an adult:

Interior shots of the lobby:

Texture feature on a selection of the walls:

In summer the building surrounded by greenery and life:

View of Corbusierhaus from top of abandoned US Cold War spy station

All of the above images were taken using a Canon EOS 600D, and then processed through Adobe Lightroom using VSCO to create the effect that the images were taken using a film camera more specific to the time, as the effect the Kodak film gives above.

It is no wonder this is such a sought after place to live, and also explains why many architects of this time wanted to create their rendition of a movement that was so prevalent for a good part of the 20th century. Nearly all of the residence that were coming in or out of the building greeted you with a friendly 'Hallo' or 'Guten Morgen'. This was refreshing as Le Corbusier's original designs set out to do just this, for everybody, no matter their background or class, to live under one roof and socialise, what one may consider a Utopian ideal (Similar to that of Thomas More's Utopian Island).