Brutalism in Marseille

Marseille is a pilgrimage site for concrete architecture because of a single building: the Unité d'Habitation, completed by Le Corbusier in 1952 on Boulevard Michelet. The Cité Radieuse, with its béton brut pilotis, interior streets, and rooftop terrace, effectively named the brutalist movement and influenced housing design worldwide. But the city's concrete story continues beyond it. Fernand Boukobza, a local architect, designed Le Brasilia, a 1967 residential tower that answers the Unité across the same neighborhood, and Le Grand Pavois rises as one of the tallest apartment buildings in the city. Together they make the southern districts of Marseille an open-air lesson in how Corbusian ideas were absorbed and adapted.