Duplex in the Étoiles d’Ivry

Located on the top floor of the Marat building, this duplex offers a total area of 55.6 m² and features a 20 m² terrace.

The first level contains the living spaces. An entrance leads to a living room with a lounge and dining area, opening onto a semi-open kitchen. This level also includes access to the terrace.

The half-level features ample storage and an office, creating an additional small living space.

The upper floor houses the night area, consisting of two sleeping spaces (5 m² and 7 m², which can easily be combined into a single bedroom as originally designed) and a bathroom.

A closed garage completes this apartment.

Located on the edge of Paris, this property benefits from all the amenities, shops, schools, and transportation of Ivry-sur-Seine’s city center. Just steps from the Line 7 metro and a 9-minute walk from the RER C, the center of Paris is accessible in 20 minutes.

The Étoiles d’Ivry complex is part of the Ivry-sur-Seine city center renovation project, carried out between 1962 and 1975 under the direction of Renée Gailhoustet, who was appointed chief architect of the project in 1969. She collaborated with Jean Renaudie on several parts of the development.

Seeking to offer an alternative to the standard collective housing blocks and towers, Jean Renaudie and Renée Gailhoustet designed, both together and separately, bold, innovative buildings with mixed functions, arranged in a stepped layout throughout the city center. The volumes, organized according to a triangular grid, create a complex network of passageways and terraces, resulting in an unusual and fascinating urban landscape, a self-contained piece of the city.

The interplay of overlapping and setbacks generates great spatial diversity in each apartment. The non-orthogonal grid encourages the creation of nooks and unplanned spaces, allowing residents to freely appropriate the areas through their own use. Each terrace-garden in the complex fosters a close relationship with the outdoors, encourages neighborly interactions, and involves residents in the building’s evolution through its greening.

One of the few female architects of her generation, Renée Gailhoustet (1929-2023) was born in Oran. At the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts, she joined the studio of Marcel Lods, André Hermant, and Henri Trezzinin the only one accepting women at the time. There, she met architect Jean Renaudie (1925-1981) in 1952. She established her own agency in 1964 and was appointed Chief Architect for the renovation of Ivry-sur-Seine’s city center in 1969. In 2022, the Raspail Tower in Ivry-sur-Seine, her first major work, was listed as a Historic Monument, and the Liégat received the ACR label.

Gailhoustet’s work has been recognized both nationally and internationally. She received the Medal of Honor 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 from the Royal Academy of Arts in London. Most recently, in October 2022, she was awarded the Ministry of Culture’s Lifetime Achievement Award for her body of work. She passed away in her Ivry-sur-Seine apartment on January 4, 2023.