In 1929, the Cité de Refuge was the first large Paris-based commission to have been awarded to Charles-Edouard Jeanneret, known as Le Corbusier, and his cousin Pierre Jeanneret.

This ambitious project was based on the social ideals of the Salvation Army to accommodate people in need of housing and social reintegration, and yet was in itself a work of art. The finished building offered a perfect illustration of Le Corbusier’s ideas at the time and was a remarkable application of the five-point theory of modern architecture.

The decision was made to give back to this social project designed by Le Corbusier and Pierre Jeanneret a lucidity and clarity worthy of a major work of the 20th century.

Location
Paris, 13th arrondissement

Project type
Redevelopment
and restoration

Program
Housing

Project owner
3F Résidences
de France (RSF) / 3F

Team
Chatillon Architectes
(associate architect), François
Gruson (lead architect),
Vanessa Fernandez (scientific
consultant)

Budget
€ 25m excl. of VAT

Timeline
2009 – 2015

Awards
Geste d’Or 2015

We adapted the building to the requirements of contemporary life, instilling it with lucidity and clarity by means of partial restorations and the restitution of details found through the study of archive documentation. We also consulted numerous experts on the colours used at the time of the original construction.

The exemplary nature of the project was awarded the Geste d’Or prize in 2015 in the category “Architecture, Urbanism and Society”.