Twenty years ago, the Saint-Pierre church on the Le Corbusier site in Firminy was inaugurated. Ten years later, the Maison de la culture on the same site was included on the UNESCO world heritage list. And to celebrate this double anniversary, we needed events to match…
In the Le Corbusier family, there is the radiant city of Marseille, the family home in Rezé, the housing unit of Berlin, the radiant city of Briey-en-Forêt, and there is the housing unit of Firminy, the last of the architect. And the Loire site is the most important urban ensemble created and inspired by Charles Édouard Jeanneret known as Le Corbusier in Europe, and the second in the world after that of Chandigarh, in India. A unique heritage composed of a housing unit, but also a municipal stadium, a church, a swimming pool and a center of culture and youth.
It is therefore logical that the Maison de la culture was classified as a UNESCO world heritage site in 2016, ten years after the inauguration of the Saint-Pierre church. 2026 marks a double major anniversary for the appelou site.
Seen on Youtube
For the occasion, a YouTube video by Mohamed Gholam puts the site in the spotlight, in his show Le Nouveau Program, followed by 50,000 subscribers. Because above all, Mohamed Gholam is an architect. He created this program which he defines as a hybrid between Arte’s Architecture series and the France 3 show C’est pas sorcerer. For 24 minutes, he recounts the history of the Firminy Vert site, supporting plans, with numerous anecdotes about the birth of this district. A project that required many months of work. Entitled “Le Corbusier’s last project”, it places particular emphasis on the housing unit.
Work on the latter began in 1965. A few months later, Le Corbusier died and it was his disciple André Wogenschky who completed the building and inaugurated it two years later. Initially, when a population explosion was predicted in Firminy, Le Corbusier was asked to design three units like this. But the economy and therefore the population quickly stagnated, and only one building was delivered. A structure built on 17 levels, with apartments nested within each other and crossed by seven “streets” floors.
Firminy Vert makes a milestone
Beyond this communication stunt which allows us to highlight this site which is sometimes still unknown to the general public, it is a whole program of activities which will put the Le Corbusier site in the spotlight throughout this double anniversary year. Since the beginning of February in the Saint-Pierre church, the exhibition L’odyssey du regard, dedicated to the photographer Lucien Hervé, an acolyte of the architect, immerses visitors in the world of Le Corbusier. Through his black and white photos, he offers a different reading of his works.
Then, from July 3, Döppel Studio will present Solaire, a journey made up of eight installations aimed at transforming the church into a living space of light and shadow, where visitors explore the solar cycles and the variations of reflections. A participatory project also invites residents to create a giant patchwork in knitting or crochet, in order to create a shade over the church square. They have until May 31 to take part in this creation.
In 2026, the future celebrates its past in Firminy.
