LA CITÉ RADIEUSE

Photography by Aleph Molinari La Cité Radieuse in Marseille is one of Le Corbusier's most celebrated architectural achievements — a self-contained residential complex completed in 1952, which he famously described as a "living machine." Designed to house an entire community within a single structure, it contains 337 apartments across eighteen floors, along with shops, a hotel, a nursery school, and a rooftop terrace conceived as a communal landscape. A landmark of modernist urbanism and a UNESCO World Heritage Site, it remains one of the most radical expressions of Le Corbusier's vision of architecture as a total environment for collective life. From 2023 to 2025, it was also the site of the Purple Residence, a programme of artistic residencies and exhibitions that brought artists including Peter Shire and Elizabeth Glaessner into dialogue with this singular architectural context.