Description
Brutalist Geometry in Aubervilliers
In the heart of the La Maladrerie district, a major project designed by Renée Gailhoustet in Aubervilliers in 1985, this family apartment was fully renovated in 2016
On the 3rd floor of a 4-story building, this apartment offers a surface area of 108.35 m² (LC) and benefits from 33.5 m² of terraces with no overlook.
It features a spacious living area of over 70 m², flooded with light and open to the views and sky thanks to a row of large windows. The space includes a double living room, a study area, and an open-plan kitchen, three bedrooms, a bathroom, and a shower room.
The living area is extended to the West by a 20 m² terrace offering unobstructed views of the skyline, and to the East by a second 10 m² terrace adjacent to the kitchen.
A double enclosed parking space completes the property.
The apartment takes advantage of the post-and-beam structural system, which frees the space from any constraints by removing load-bearing walls. The 2016 renovation opened up and enlarged the living room to adapt the space to the current owners’ needs.
In a quiet area, this apartment is located in the private residential part of the La Maladrerie district, in the heart of Aubervilliers, just 7 minutes on foot from the Fort d’Aubervilliers metro station on line 7. It benefits from all nearby shops.
La Maladrerie: A Social Utopia at the Gates of Paris
Renée Gailhoustet designed the La Maladrerie district between 1975 and 1985. The entire complex was labeled “20th Century Heritage” in 2008. A true urban utopia, the development spans 8 hectares and takes the form of a sculptural hill made of raw concrete, overtaken by vegetation, with pedestrian walkways running through it. It includes a small private residence, 900 duplex or triplex apartments, 40 artist studios, a retirement home, shops, and facilities.
She created La Maladrerie alongside her involvement in the development of social housing in Ivry-sur-Seine, where she collaborated with architect Jean Renaudie, whose influence is also evident in Aubervilliers.
The reinforced concrete post-and-beam structure allowed Renée Gailhoustet to work with the whole complex and its volumes, using complex, bold, and original forms—curved or triangular—renewing the typical “block” layout of social housing. Each apartment features a floor plan free from load-bearing walls, allowing residents to personalize their homes as they wish, along with a garden or at least a ground-level terrace for gardening.
Renée Gailhoustet (1929-2023)
One of the few female architects of her generation, Renée Gailhoustet was born in 1929 in Oran. She studied philosophy at the Sorbonne and was active in the Communist Youth before turning to architecture. At the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts, she joined the studio of Marcel Lods, André Hermant, and Henri Trezzini, the only one that admitted women at the time. There, she met Jean Renaudie (1925-1981) in 1952. She founded her own agency in 1964 (which closed permanently in 1999) and was appointed Chief Architect for the renovation of Ivry-sur-Seine’s city center in 1969.
Renée Gailhoustet carried out numerous social housing projects in the Île-de-France region. Inspired by Jean Renaudie’s work as well as the theoretical work of the Team X group, she developed building typologies that went beyond the functionalist standards inspired by Le Corbusier: stepped buildings with complex, interlocking geometry, offering a wide variety of housing types.
In 2022, the Raspail Tower in Ivry-sur-Seine, her first project, was listed as a historical monument, while Le Liégat received the “Remarkable Contemporary Architecture” label.
Renée Gailhoustet’s work was recognized, albeit late in her career, both nationally and internationally. She received numerous awards, including the Honorary Medal from the Academy of Architecture in 2018 and the Grand Arts Prize of Berlin the following year. In May 2022, she won the Architecture Prize for her “extraordinary contribution to social housing in France” from the Royal Academy of Arts in London. More recently, in October 2022, Renée Gailhoustet received the Ministry of Culture’s Honorary Prize for her entire body of work, just months before passing away in her Ivry-sur-Seine apartment on January 4, 2023.
Technical Information
Asking Price: €520,000
The fees are payable by the seller.
Co-ownership, number of lots: 52.
Quarterly amount of current charges: N/A
Property tax: N/A
Energy Class: E / Climate Class: B
Estimated average annual energy expenses for standard use, based on 2021 energy prices: between €2,610 and €3,580.
