Rehabilitation centre for the young unemployed

Created in 1938, the Centre scientifique de la Main-d'œuvre and the association Centre d'Étude du Travail, headed by Philippe Serre, a former Under-Secretary of State for Labour, wanted to enlarge their premises at numbers 9 and 11 rue Le Bua, in Paris. The project was placed under the patronage of the Minister of Labour and the Seine département. It is sometimes called the Maison des Jeunes, which accounts for the letters MJ on one of the drawings.

During the winter of 1939-1940 Le Corbusier entrusted Raoul Simon, a "lettering painter", with a painting on a gable wall. Simon had already made a mural for him at Vézelay, as well as those of the Pavillon des Temps Nouveaux in 1937. On 23 October 1940 Le Corbusier wrote to Jose Luis Sert that they had finished the first Atelier de Jeunesse de France, on rue de la Bua in Ménilmontant, "bursting with colour". In 1942 one of the courtyards was altered. The centre has since been demolished.

The extension was meant to help unemployed young people back into work. It provided for apprenticeship workshops (carpentry, electricity, introductions to drawing, sculpture and radio broadcasting), classrooms, housing and a sports hall of large size.

Two buildings, one larger and taller than the other, are laid out around several courtyards. The differences in height go with different roofs: sheds, double slope.