# La Cité Frugès by Le Corbusier

"Je vous autorise à réaliser dans la pratique de vos théories [...] Pessac doit être un laboratoire" ("I allow you to achieve your theories [...] Pessac must be a laboratory") Henri Frugès said to Le Corbusier in 1924 when he orders the achievement of a garden city for his workers in Pessac (Suburbs of Bordeaux).
After theoric works like Citrohan House, Domino House, Plan Voisin, Le Corbusier is thus able to achieve his architecture at big scale.

Le Corbusier and his cousin, Pierre Jeanneret organised the site with five different kinds of buildings:

Isolated (70m²)

Skyscraper (110m²)

Zigzag (80m²)

Archway (85m²)

Staggered Rows (80m²)


Pessac was famous for a long time as the Modernism's failure. In fact, housing were originally planned to be three times cheaper to build than what they actually were (only 50 housing were actually built instead of 135 expected).

Then, as years went by, buildings were transformed little by little by its inhabitants who obviously prefered traditionnal ways of housing than modernism ones. Nowadays, a lot of buildings were renovated but there are still some of them which still show inhabitants readjustments.
Infact, Pessac still tackles the problem of the breakage between innovation and tradition and also the architect's knowledge and competence to think and act in favor of people who undergo architecture every day.