Unité d'habitation Berlin Charlottenburg (Le Corbusier-Hochhaus) 1958

Abstract

This chapter focuses on Berlin Unité, which is located on the hill above Heerstrasse, Berlin. The citizens administration of Berlin commissioned Le Corbusier to design the Berlin Unité on the occasion of the 1957 Interbau, an international exposition. The Berlin building conforms to the basic form of the Unité; however, it lacks the communal facilities that Le Corbusier felt were crucial to its successful social functioning. It has four hundred apartments accommodating nearly two thousand people. By placing the Unité on the crest of the Olympic Hill, Le Corbusier emphasized its monumental quality and, perhaps, the acropolitan quality of the site at the expense of its integration in the city. Because of an uneasy relations with his German collaborators and because German building standards conflicted with his personal system of measurement, Le Corbusier abandoned the proportioning system of the Modulor, increasing the floor-to-floor height by approximately one meter. This reproportioning adversely affected the brise-soleil. Consequently, Berlin lacks the sense of balance that characterizes the best of the Unités. In the end, extremely dissatisfied, Le Corbusier renounced it.