Yesterday, I went to Le Havre in order to make a little photographic reportage within the city which was reconstructed after allied bombings in 1944. At this time Le Havre could be assimilated as the French Coventry and 10 000 new housing had to be built in ten years. Auguste Perret, who was already 71 years old, was appointed as Chief Architect of the Reconstruction and his office designed all the buildings which are now Le Havre downtown. In order to be efficient, every single architectural element's dimensions were according to a 6.24 metres weft. Thus, every buildings are 2x6.24m wide, every post is separated to another one by 6.24m, every window is 6.24/6m etc. In addition of that, Perret wanted to build an huge concrete layer 3.50 metres above ground and to "lay" all the city on it because of the boggy land. Thus, all the technical facilities (water, electricity, telephone, car parks etc.) would have been put under this layer. Unfortunetly, it wasn't accepted by
Online magazine Triple Canopy has released its third issue called Urbanisms: Model Cities. I particularly recommend the article The City that built itself by Joshua Bauchner about Caracas.
