Cité Radieuse - Pilotis
ECAL for Appartement 50
2015
Our masters class was invited to develop and present an exhibition of pieces designed for an apartment in Le Corbuiser’s legendary Cité Radieuse.
The work was developed specifically for Appartement 50, the preserved and protected appartement within the Unité d’Habitation in Marseille, France. We began with vast research of Le Corbusier, his work and his life, and in the fall of 2014 we visited the monumental building, the first of his large housing developments, meant to be a total living structure, providing all its inhabitants need.
Pilotis is a set of vases inspired by the pillars supporting the building.
For these vases I worked out a method to reproduce wooden texture, much like the Beton Brut concrete production method used throughout the building. The vases are made from a tinted porcelain, also to reference the concrete, and the interior is glazed in a translucent white, allowing it to be filled with water. The two sizes are different shapes but both are made in proportion to Le Corbusier's Modulor system of measurement.
These pieces were slip cast with the help of Peter Fink of Potsfink, a talented ceramic artist in Fribourg.
The vases were exhibited at the Appartement 50 from July 4th - 19th, 2015, along with all the other wonderful pieces made by the colleagues of my class.
First photo: Stanislaw Czarnocki
Photos 2, 3 and 4: Michel Bonvin