Unit of Habitation Firmini

The mayor of Firminy, Claudius Petit, commissioned Le Corbusier to design the Unité d'Habitation complex for the city, which would complete a large-scale residential development that began with the first phase initiated by architects Marcel Roux and André Sive.
After World War II, Firminy anticipated a population increase to 50,000 inhabitants. They wanted to be prepared for this situation and therefore asked Le Corbusier to develop an urban plan for "Green Firminy" with 3,500 housing units, including three Unité d'Habitation buildings. However, the population remained stagnant at 25,000 residents, leading the city to abandon the plan to realize the remaining two Unité d'Habitation buildings.
Construction started in 1965. After Le Corbusier's death, his assistant André Wogenscky took over the project. The building, with a capacity of 414 apartments, was completed in 1967, but even after six years, a third of the apartments remained unoccupied. Like the Unité d'Habitation in other French cities, the apartment building has the same dimensions (130m long, 21m wide, and 56m high). Both longitudinal facades are oriented east and west and are fitted with large concrete sunshades. Unlike the famous building in Marseille, they had to make do with a quarter of the budget in Firminy.