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MARSEILLES, FRANCE — It was called "Unité d'Habitation," but this massive apartment block overlooking the lavender-strewn hills of Provence and the glinting Mediterranean does not prompt a unity of opinion, even sixty years after it first opened — least of all amongst its own inhabitants.
Upon the 1952 opening of this rough-textured concrete high rise slab — home to 1,600 residents — the never-shy Marseillaises dubbed it "La Maison du Fada" —Provençal dialect for "Crazy House," or even better, "Cuckoo Coop."
There were reasons for these sentiments, as Unité d'Habitation was bigger than any other single apartment block in France. In a tour-de-force of architectural ingenuity, Le Corbusier designed no less than 24 different unit types, accommodating everyone from single seniors to families with 8 children in a demonstration project that was duplicated in five other European cities, including Firminy to the north and Berlin.