Volume 54, Number 18 · November 22, 2007
Corbu's Condo
By Claude Gintz
In response to Master Builders
(September 27, 2007)
To the Editors:
In his review of Martin Filler's Makers of Modern Architecture [NYR, September 27], Robert Hughes describes Le Corbusier's Unité d'Habitation in Marseilles: "When I spent two days filming it...in 1980, [it] was a miserably depressing wreck of a place. Perhaps Filler never saw it in its later condition...." A quarter of a century later, Mr. Hughes would be amazed to see how it has been turned into a highly praised condo for middle-class educated people who claim to maintain the high-quality standards set up by its architect. Too bad if it is no longer occupied by those for whom it was originally built. But that's another story.
Claude Gintz
Ivry-sur-Seine, France