Corbusierhaus.
“Typ Berlin” is the name given to the Le Corbusier flats in the Unité d’Habitation in Berlin, today lovingly referred to as Corbusierhaus. Corbusierhaus is the 1957 Berlin version of the 1952 block of flats the Architect created in Marseille.
Knowing the Marseille version of the building it is interesting to see its Berlin cousin currently going through a vast renovation project. Our two week stay in April’s Spring light gave us an opportunity to experience this “body defined” master work of Architecture and look at the details that define (and contrast) both buildings.
As much as when you visit Ronchamp, the church le Corbusier built in the French Jura, living in the flats Le Corbusier designed is an “all senses” experience that photography alone can’t fully convey. There is certainly something very graphic about these buildings that can be captured through the lens. Photographs often reflect on the way the light plays with the concrete or how beautiful the shapes of the stilts or chimneys are and again how the carefully selected colours gently clash or how striking the framed views of the setting are.
When living in a Corbusier building your entire body relates to it. The spaces have been designed with the human body as measurement unit: the Modulor. Every bit of the building is related to the body proportion, not to numbers or industry gauges and production plant sizes. Exactly like the shell of a snail or the den of the fox, the spaces are designed for you to curl up, move your bones up and down, gather together, all very comfortably. Walls feel at the right distance, ceiling at your raised hand height, communal space to provide the right set back between collectiveness and privacy. One difference between Typ Berlin and Typ Marseille is the ceiling heights which have had to increase in Berlin as Le Corbusier design was not complying with the local regulations; this changed the original modulor proportions.
The accents of comfort are less done to satisfy a superficial glimpse and more to the invisible specifications on elements for ventilation, acoustics, natural light, thermal comfort. This renders “function” into “luxury”. The block of flats is surprisingly silent throughout the day and night despite the use of concrete, exposed service pipework and ventilation shafts.
A majority of the flats are dual aspect providing natural light that evolves with the day. The units have been designed to adapt to seasonal sunlight and mitigate heat gain in the summer and maximize day light in the winter. While the Marseille flats are mostly dual aspects on two floors, and only the hotel rooms are single aspect, in Berlin some flats are smaller units and there is no internal commercial street nor hotel. Marseille façades are equipped with brise soleil at mid height in the loggias, which were not fitted in Berlin.
Sitting down at the dining table in a space you might consider too small when paired to an already compact 4m2 kitchen, you realize that a space can fulfill your needs only when it is nicely proportioned and well-conceived. The authorities in Berlin, at the time, did not allow the open plan kitchen and living room as is found in the in Marseille kitchens, designed ergonomically in collaboration with Charlotte Perriand.
Visiting a few different flats in Typ Berlin one can experience how Fernand Léger’s palette of colours used on the double height loggias create a very unique feel to each flat. The views of Grunewald and central Berlin enjoyed from all levels convey the feeling of spaciousness. In Berlin the balconies are accessed through a glass door while in Marseille the windows open fully an the sill transforms in a seating bench, making both spaces into a large indoor/ outdoor family space.