Apartment with balcony

Near the Molitor Hotel & Spa and the Porte d’Auteuil, the building is located in the prestigious architectural district of Boulogne-Billancourt from the 1930s. Inaugurated in 1929 and classified as a Historic Monument, the famous Molitor swimming pool was the most sought-after in Paris for 60 years due to its two pools and avant-garde atmosphere. The Dupanloup School and College are also nearby.

The building is served by the Paris metro (Porte d’Auteuil station at 11 minutes, Michel-Ange Molitor and Porte de Saint-Cloud stations at 12 minutes), numerous bus lines, and has direct access to the A13 highway.

Built between 1931 and 1934, the Molitor building rises 8 stories high and includes 2 to 3 apartments per floor. It was commissioned by the Société Immobilière de Paris Parc des Princes for a residential building. It is the only apartment building designed by Le Corbusier in Paris and prefigures the concept of the Radiant Cities, a modern ideal combining the advantages of collective and individual housing.

It implements 4 of the 5 points of modern architecture: the free plan, the free facade, ribbon windows, and the roof terrace. The free plan is made possible by the use of a reinforced concrete pillar structure, allowing for great diversity in the layout of the apartments according to the residents’ needs.

The bold, fully glazed facade consists of a black steel skeleton, reinforced glass panels, and Nevada glass bricks, reminiscent of the Glass House designed by Pierre Chareau, Bernard Bijvoet, and Louis Dalbet in 1931 in the Saint-Germain district. The overall composition is animated by continuous balconies and a large two-story oriel, slightly cantilevered.

A cradle of great industrial and artistic adventures in the early 20th century, Boulogne-Billancourt became the favored land of the creative avant-garde during the interwar period. Cubist art dealer Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler, pioneers of cinema (Abel Gance, Jean Renoir), sculpture (Landowski, Joseph Bernard, Lipchitz), painting (Juan Gris, Chagall), and literature (Michel Leiris, André Malraux) made the city their home. The effervescence of the city in the 1920s attracted artists to settle in Boulogne-Billancourt. They chose the Bois de Boulogne and Parc des Princes neighborhoods to build their homes and commissioned the most innovative architects of their time (Le Corbusier, Perret, Mallet-Stevens, Patout). The city experienced its architectural golden age.

Several urban planning projects designed for Mayor André Morizet and private commissions for a wealthy clientele eager to live in a new world of forms brought Le Corbusier to Boulogne. He realized several “manifesto architectures” for artist friends, industrialists, and the upper bourgeoisie, including the studios of Jacques Lipchitz and Oscar Miestchaninoff (1925), the Cook House (1927), the now-demolished Villa Ternisien (1927), and the Molitor building where he lived (1934).

Born in 1887 in Switzerland and died in 1965, Charles-Édouard Jeanneret, better known as Le Corbusier, was an architect and urban planner known for his ability to make architecture a total art. He designed buildings, interiors, furniture, and considered the urban dimension of all his projects. He remains one of the most emblematic figures of the Modern Movement.

Throughout his career, Le Corbusier shared his visions and theories through participation in international exhibitions, such as the 1925 exhibition where he presented the Pavillon de l’Esprit Nouveau, and the 1937 exhibition with his Pavillon des Temps Nouveaux.

A defender of modernism and rejecting decorative arts, Le Corbusier’s architectural thinking is embodied in his villas, particularly the Villa Savoye in 1928, where he theorized the “five points of modern architecture” (pilotis, roof terrace, ribbon windows, free facade, and free plan).

Although he was one of the most prolific architects of his time, many of his projects were never realized, such as the “Voisin” Plan or the Contemporary City for three million inhabitants. Sometimes too polemical or radical for the general public, Le Corbusier’s work nonetheless resonates internationally. His last major project was offered by the city of Chandigarh, India, where he was commissioned to oversee all urban planning works for the creation of the new capital of Punjab, blending raw concrete and lush vegetation.