The Trouble with Stilts

For three years skeptical Frenchmen have watched Le Corbusier's ultramodern "Radiant City" taking form in the suburbs of Marseille (TIME, Feb. 2, 1948; June 12, 1950). They found plenty of fault with the 300-family apartment house. The quarters were cramped, the master bedrooms offered hardly any privacy from the living rooms, and windowless kitchens would make it hard for the pungent odors of French cooking to escape, or for French housewives to throw their garbage into the street. Last week, with the building nearing completion, vinophilic Frenchmen were talking about the most serious flaw of all. A Marseille daily, La France, pointed out with horror that, by building his Radiant City on stilts, the architect had left no room for wine cellars. Said one indignant Marseillais: "Who wants to live in a temperance asylum? Give me a one-story bungalow with four walls, windows, a roofand a wine cellar."

In his monastic Paris quarters, Le Corbusier replied calmly: "There will be a central grocery where the tenants can buy their wine every day." The Swiss-born architect had no sympathy for people who wanted to keep a few old bottles of their own in a cool, dark place. "Let them go and live elsewhere."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.