Tue Sep 02 2025

For all the architecture lovers: when you’re planning your vacation to Marseille, Le Corbusier’s Unité d’Habitation is the first building people will recommend seeing. It is, without a doubt, a must-see for enthusiasts of modernist architecture. However, while you’re in Marseille, take a moment also to track down Fernand Pouillon - an overshadowed architect and urban planner who arguably had a much deeper and more lasting impact on the city – and who should, in my opinion, be more appreciated! After working for half a year as an urbanist, observing and analysing this complex yet charming city, I felt like sharing my comparison between the two architects and urbanists who shaped Marseille in their own manner.

Door entrance in Rue Henri Tasso

Il faut tuer la rue-corridor

Don't get me wrong, the Unité d’Habitation itself is definitely worth a visit when in Marseille. Located in the south, outside the city centre, this experimental building hosts perhaps the most beautiful apartments in the city. If you’re there, I invite you to talk to the residents and kindly ask to see their apartment; maybe you’ll get a peek inside! Besides the apartments, the design of Unité d’Habitation is unique thanks to its integrated social services, like small shops, a restaurant and a hotel. Yet, it never really worked out until it became a tourist destination. Even the swimming pool, trail run and gymnastic hall – now turned into a centre of contemporary art - on the rooftop are rarely used by its residents.

Le Corbusier was brilliant as an architect, but to be critical, his approach to urbanism was not successful. His sketch of ‘Il faut tuer la rue-corridor’ (1930), illustrates the death of ‘the street’, and the street as hallway. He points out that our daily life must happen inside the building, while the street becomes a parking lot or a transit zone. Therefore, the Unité d’Habitation functions like an island on its own. Stunning, but anti-urban. In his master plan, La Cité Radieuse, he envisioned constructing multiple blocks, such as the Unité d’Habitation, as a vertical village, where ‘the street’ was largely ignored. Eventually, only one apartment block, one Unnité d’Habitation, was built. This plan was a prototype, and he built different variations elsewhere in France, as well as in Berlin; however, the Marseille one is the most iconic.

I have always envisioned it as a big grey whale, with the apartment terraces as coloured scales, washed up on the shore of the city. For sure, it is the most photographed building in Marseille, but I would like to invite you to look further and beyond this algorithm.

Prison Escape

Insert Fernand Pouillon. As ‘l'architecte le plus recherché de la France’, there is much to say about him, yet, strangely enough, outside of France, he is less well-known. Pouillon’s post-war modernist planning in Marseille and elsewhere in southern France was innovative, timeless, and contextually sensitive. However, his success in France took a turn at the beginning of the 1960s, when he was accused of false accounting for a project in Boulogne-Billancourt, just outside of Paris. At that time, architects were prohibited from financing and participating in the construction of their own projects to separate design and development. By breaking this law, he ended up in prison.

One year in, Pouillon found a sensational way to escape. He tied ropes to each other, climbed down a drainpipe, and with the help of his sympathisers, he flew to Italy. After a year of hiding, he decided to voluntarily return to prison in an attempt to clear his name. However, the French court did not approve his release, and he stayed another four years in prison, isolated as a hermit. Eventually, it turned out to be a fruitful period for him since he could write Les Pierres Sauvages (1964), a novel about the construction of Provence’s medieval Cistercian monasteries.

After its release, Pouillon left prison and was expelled to Algeria, that just gained independence two years prior. All the social housing complexes and hotels he constructed there are outstandingly beautiful. They could easily be compared to the ones in Marseille, both having influences of North Africa and Mediterranean typologies. Sadly, nowadays, they are in a bad condition, but they are still worth a trip to Algeria, if it is not yet on your list.

Rue Saint-Laurent

Social Modernism

At the Vieux Port in Marseille, you may have noticed Pouillon’s buildings: they stand prominently, yet so well integrated into the cityscape. These post-war modernist complexes were built in the 50s, after the northern side of the Vieux Port was bombed by the Nazi’s. (Shocking sidenote: this demolition was approved by the city government to get rid of this problematic area next to the harbour. Residents had only a few hours to leave their houses before the bombs hit.) Pouillon-inspired architects developed the new constructions all in the same particular method: very timeless, inclusive and quick. They built 200 homes within 200 days to a budget of 200 million francs, which is 25% lower than their competitors.

At that time and even today, the apartments are not considered luxurious and remain very livable for the Marseillais. Especially, located next to the Panier, a rapidly airbnb’ing neighbourhood, they are once again more favoured. As an urbanist, I can conclude that Pouillon embraced a more inclusive vision of social housing by designing equally sized apartments for all residents. Compared to Le Corbusier, who was criticised for dividing society because he was building his so-called urban villas next to small working-class apartments in towering buildings with disproportionate densities between the two of them.

La Tourette buildings from Rue Saint-Laurent

A Closer Inspection

Pouillon’s modern construction methods have lots of squared shapes, creating a style with a repetitive pattern. These shapes are inspired by classicism, with a love for traditional materials and a sense of order and symmetry. A good example is the engraved squares, where he took inspiration from the Pantheon, visible under the ceilings and on the walls of the vistas, which is a striking view with a focal point in the distance. Hereby, he connects the buildings with the streets, making it an obvious way to walk in that direction. On my sketch, the view of the Vieux Port is the vista, and the Basilica Notre-Dame de la Garde is considered the focal point.

Sketch: Passage Pentecontore, vista to the Vieux Port

His traditional construction system is called la pierre banché and has a modern technique of using slabs of stone as permanent shuttering to save time and money and to cast real stone cladding for the walls. That's why you still see the lines of the stones in the façades. I consider Pouillon’s complexes both bombastic and elegant. The blocks at the Vieux Port are standing next to each other and appear to be a bit massive. But I advise you to go look for the details, because that’s what makes his work unique. Look above to the ceilings and you find the rectangularly circled serpents in the modular grids. Or, at door entrances, you will find charming decorations with colourful tiles. Combined with the brown and green of plants hanging from the balconies, you immediately forget about your initial bombastic impression.

Ceiling detail in Quai du Port

Why isn’t Pouillon remembered today as a renowned architect, urbanist, communist, or novelist? Unlike Le Corbusier, who often reinforced social divides, Pouillon built inclusively: equally sized apartments, affordable construction, and timeless details for ordinary people. His post-war projects reshaped Marseille with housing that remains livable and socially meaningful, blending into the city yet still worth seeking out.

Part of his obscurity may stem from his exile to Algeria, which fractured his career, even though he was later honoured as an architect of lasting importance. If he had embraced concrete, we might remember him as a ‘brutalist’ icon. Instead, we have something rarer, quiet, enduring buildings that prove social housing can be both fair and beautiful.

References

- Carina Kurta et al., Marseille: Architekturführer, DOM Publishers (architecture guidebook with excursions to Aix-en-Provence, Arles, and the Étang de Berre).

- Fernand Pouillon, l’architecte le plus recherché de France, short film by Jean-Marie Montangerand, AlloCiné.

- Fernand Pouillon: The Future That Didn’t Happen", Declad (overview of Pouillon’s career and legacy).

- How Marseille Was Rebuilt by French Modernist Architect Fernand Pouillon, Bloomberg, February 8, 2025.

- L’aventure algérienne de Fernand Pouillon", AD Magazine France, by Christian Simenc (on Pouillon’s projects and influence in Algeria).

- "Marseille, précisions sur la reconstruction du Vieux-Port", Espazium, by Pierre Frey (chronicle on

the Vieux-Port’s reconstruction).

Anaïs Bonroy