Timeline – Journey to the Ivry-sur-Seine

In the second half of 1920s, the suburbs in Paris connected by the railway portrayed a reflection of communist values in a need for social housing for the working class of society. The local authorities felt the need to have homes with central heating and showers.1

The period around 1950s witnessed a transformation in the notion of public housing in terms of the quality of the spaces as well as the services provided in it. Basic services like a bathroom with bath, windows were a rarity in social housing. Later, the upcoming priority zones of urbanization gave an opportunity for redevelopment projects on a larger scale due to the incentives that employers received to move to the provinces.1One such suburb, Ivry-sur-Seine had a growing demand for housing for the increasing population and had sites that were available for large scale redevelopment

Initially, this commission was given to an architect Roland Dubrulle who was both a communist but who also believed in the concept of Grand ensembles. The connection of Renaudie to Dubrulle’s office was through Renee Gailhoustet who worked at Dubrulle’s office on these public housing projects. Renaudie’s initial work for the city of Le Vaudreuil that made a strong impression on the director of Ivry’s public housing officer. It played a vital role in connecting Renaudie to the Ivry.2

Scalbert, Irenee. 2004. A Right To Difference - The architecture of Jean Renaudie Pg. 44

The masterplan – Danielle Casanova

It is only after extruding lines from each of the vertices of the diagonals can one establish a grid, a slow realization of the innate simplicity of form, of complexity and indeterminacy generating in a manner as simple as that of joining of the two ends of a line, a diagonal. In the pursuit of dissecting the plan and studying how each space corresponds to the adjacent one, there remains the question of whether the evident effects of the disposition of one apartment on the others that made it necessary to have never-ending adjustments between themselves as well as the inside and outside, a meaningful transition. The highly complicated design development paved a way to a chain reaction of complexity that not always came with a meaning attached to it.

The traditional manners of judging a space based on its segregation and adjacency of function, the size of the rooms does not seem to be applicable here. On the other hand, the interdependency of internal faces almost renders it impossible to make any changes to any of the blocks as it would eventually change the rest of the spaces. It is evident in some cases that the ratio of indoor to outdoor space is not a standard figure and adds to the complexity of the form as a whole.