“Appartement 50” in Le Corbusier’s “Cité Radieuse” in Marseille is famous among designers and architects. Not only because its owners, Jean-Marc Drut and Patrick Blauwart, regularly open its doors to the public, but also because they have been getting various designers on board to furnish the restored rooms with the built-in furniture by Charlotte Perriand, Pierre Jeanneret and Le Corbusier in their own style. In recent years, the coveted invites went to Pierre Charpin (2014), Konstantin Grcic (2013), Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec (2010) and Jasper Morrison (2008), who seized the opportunity to intertwine their own production with the architecture of Le Corbusier. This year Drut and Blauwart invited students from École Cantonale d’Art de Lausanne (ECAL) to give “Appartement 50” a makeover.

Under the supervision of Professor Thilo Alex Brunner and Augustin Scott de Martinville, in fall 2014 twelve students from the Department of Product Design began familiarizing themselves with the specifics of the place before they set about custom-making furnishings for it over the course of one semester. The students’ approach is different from that of their predecessors, who simply embellished the place using their finished products.

By contrast, the ECAL students came up with an invigoratingly young and playful interior that emulates the coloring on the façade, while adaptable furniture and cleverly conceived objects add comfort and a contemporary feel to living in Modernist surroundings. Clocks and clip-on lamps are just where you need them, while folding chairs and seat cushions entice residents to leave the apartment and use the building’s roof-top space. Mind you, the real highlight is spread across the floor in the form of a one-off rug made by Swiss company Ruckstuhl AG and featuring a map of the “Cité Radieuse” – a great inspiration for not only kids to have fun with “carpet map exercises” and design their hometown in the spirit of Le Corbu.

Compared to those by Charpin, Grcic or Morrison, the products the ECAL students designed for “Appartement 50” certainly have a more decorative appeal. In paying homage to the Grand Master, the budding designers have astutely melded amenable savoir de vivre with their adoration of Le Corbusier. That the students of ECAL, Europe’s most distinguished design academy at present, exercised utmost reticence in their production is only understandable given the location and the prestige of the assignment.

Appartement 50
Cité Radieuse
Unité d’habitation Le Corbusier
Appartement 50, 5ème rue
280 Boulevard Michelet
13008 Marseille
France

Opening times:
Thru July 19, 2015
daily from 12 noon to 6 p.m.

www.appt50lc.org
www.ecal.ch

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