A Tale Of Two Cities

Brutal or beautiful? Concrete buildings divide opinion, but Le Havre and Marseille have embraced the material, with dramatic results, as Rudolf Abraham and Lara Dunn reveal

 

Mention the word concrete in connection with architecture and it might cause a sneer or, at the very least, a polite dismissal. Yet, since the destruction of World War II, France has championed modernity in all its forms. That modernity has included a passionate embrace of both raw concrete (béton brut) and tamed, resulting in constructions of austere beauty and enduring functionality.

Thanks to the likes of Auguste Perret, Le Corbusier and generations of other innovators, France has arguably led the charge in concrete architecture. At opposite ends of the country, Le Havre and Marseille offer a satisfying glimpse of some of the brightest jewels in that concrete crown.

LE HAVRE During the war, the centre of Le Havre – France’s second-largest port after Marseille – was almost entirely destroyed by Allied bombing raids, in advance of the Normandy landings on 6 June 1944.

The task of rebuilding was given to Auguste Perret (1874–1954) – one of the great pioneers of modern architecture, particularly in the use of reinforced concrete as a building material. However, he remains less well-known outside his native France than some other early modernist giants such as Le Corbusier and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. (A young Le Corbusier worked as a draughtsman in Perret’s office from 1908-1910, and later said of him: “In France, there is someone who is really developing modern architecture.”)

The reconstruction of Le Havre came at the end of Perret’s illustrious career, and he already perfected his use of reinforced concrete to create a new classical order in works such as the Mobilier National in Paris and the Église Notre-Dame du Raincy on the outskirts of the capital.