The Cité de Refuge (Salvation Army Hostel), designed by Le Corbusier in collaboration with Pierre Jeanneret and completed in 1933 in Paris, is one of the architect’s earliest large-scale experiments in social housing and urban humanitarianism. Conceived for the Salvation Army, the building embodies Le Corbusier’s vision of architecture as a tool for social reform: providing dignified, hygienic, and efficient living conditions for those in need. Its striking glass façade, one of the first of its kind in residential architecture, expressed a utopian belief in transparency, light, and modern technology as agents of human renewal. Despite early technical challenges, the project remains a milestone in the evolution of modernist architecture and continues to serve its original social purpose to this day.
Cité de Refuge Technical Information
- Architects: Le Corbusier (Charles-Édouard Jeanneret) with Pierre Jeanneret.
- Restoration (2007-2016): Chatillon Architectes
- Location: 12–14 rue Cantagrel, 13e arrondissement, Paris, France
- Gross Area: 1,000 m2| 10,764 Sq. Ft.
- Project Years: 1929 – 1933
- Photographs: Flickr contributors, see individual captions for credits
The plan is the generator.
– Le Corbusier
Design and Architectural Vision
The Cité de Refuge encapsulates Le Corbusier’s Five Points of a New Architecture through its pilotis, open plan, and emphasis on light and air. Rising as a pure rectangular slab elevated above the ground, the building’s most striking feature is its fully glazed south façade: a continuous glass curtain wall unprecedented in residential design at the time. Le Corbusier envisioned this façade as a “machine for living,” sealed from the polluted Paris air and regulated by a mechanical ventilation system in line with his theory of exact respiration.
Inside, the structure accommodated dormitories, refectories, offices, and communal spaces, all organized around a strict functional logic. This architectural language expressed a profound belief in modern materials and industrial efficiency as means to dignify everyday life, especially for society’s most marginalized.
Glass Wall Experiment and Environmental Control
The sealed glazed facade belongs to the earliest large curtain walls in the city, developed to deliver “exact air” through mechanical ventilation rather than operable windows. In practice, thermal discomfort, glare, and condensation revealed the limits of a hermetic model with modest insulation and imperfect seals. The building’s environmental narrative is therefore twofold: a technologically optimistic enclosure followed by corrective shading and envelope tuning.
Le Corbusier’s later addition of an external brise-soleil reoriented the envelope toward passive solar control by intercepting summer sun while admitting winter light. The facade composes continuous glazing with opaque end walls articulated by calibrated polychromy, testing the free facade principle against the demands of a disciplined institutional program. The restoration treats this composite figure as a didactic section in environmental history, preserving legibility while resetting performance through contemporary glazing, controlled ventilation, and recalibrated shading density.
Programmatic Stratification and Spatial Devices
The building’s section establishes a clear hierarchy: social and administrative functions at the base, repetitive dormitory bands above, and a solarium roof terrace as a collective amenity. This stratification clarifies thresholds between service, assembly, and retreat, with the frame enabling large-span common rooms and regularized upper-floor grids. Daylight is a key planning driver, with broad, shared spaces oriented to achieve even illumination and smaller cells arrayed to balance light, privacy, and supervision.
Circulation is legible and efficient, pairing straight corridors with compact cores to rationalize movement and oversight typical of early 20th-century collective housing. Standardized cells and built-in furnishings embody an economy of means, featuring minimal surfaces for hygiene, precise module coordination, and robust finishes suitable for intensive use. The restoration sustains this organizational clarity while discreetly integrating fire-protected routes, accessible egress, and service shafts without compromising the underlying plan logic.
Fabric, Pathologies, and Restoration Logics
Decades of condensation, overheating, and seal failure necessitated a comprehensive response that balanced conservation with enhanced comfort and safety. The restoration focused on replacing degraded glazing with units that match the original sightlines, while introducing thermal breaks, improved gaskets, and selective low-iron panes to maintain facade transparency. Mechanical systems were reconfigured to respect the “exact air” ambition while operating with recoverable heat, variable air volumes, and filtered intake suitable for urban air quality.
The works also reestablished the brise-soleil and polychrome end walls based on archival drawings and colorimetric studies, restoring the intended dialogue between planar glass, shading lattice, and chromatic masses. Fire safety, acoustic performance, and moisture control were addressed through concealed interventions: compartmentation behind existing finishes, capillary-active interior linings where required, and reversible fixings. The result demonstrates how an interwar prototype can be technically upgraded while preserving its spatial ethics, envelope legibility, and social program as part of a living urban fabric.
About Le Corbusier
Le Corbusier (Charles-Édouard Jeanneret-Gris, 1887–1965) was a Swiss-French architect, urban planner, and designer who became one of the leading figures of modern architecture. Known for his radical ideas on form, function, and urban living, he pioneered the use of reinforced concrete, open plans, and modular design principles. Through iconic works like the Villa Savoye and the Unité d’Habitation, as well as his influential writings, he redefined architecture as a rational, human-centered discipline for the modern age.
Credits and Additional Notes
- Client: Armée du Salut (Salvation Army)
- Structural Engineers: VP & Green
- MEP Consultants: EGIS
- Construction Company: Bouygues Bâtiment Île-de-France
- Facade Consultant: Arcora
- Research References: Fondation Le Corbusier Archives
