By Peter Ottmann

Between 1945 and 1967, Le Corbusier (1887-1965) planned and built five "Unités d'habitation" in Marseille, Rezé, Berlin, Briey-en-Forêt and Firminy. Due to an acute shortage of housing after the war, he developed a new type of building--multifunctional blocks of flats that combined a large number of apartments on a small plot. These buildings included a roof landscape, as well as such urban structures as schools, cinemas, pharmacies and grocery stores. Le Corbusier's revolutionary idea of a vertical city offered novel solutions to urban planning issues and social, aesthetic and structural challenges.
The five Unités, now in various states of repair, have been photographed by photographer Arthur Zalewski (born 1971). This catalog collects Zalewski's photographs alongside texts by curator Peter Ottmann, Arthur Zalewski and Anne König.