Claude et Duval factory

Founded in 1908, the family hosiery business was partly destroyed by a fire in November 1944. Its directors, Jean Claude, Paul Duval and Jean-Jacques Duval, decided in 1946 to rebuild it; Jean-Jacques Duval, who had long wanted to enlarge and modernise the factory, approached his friend Le Corbusier. He asked for a building as functional as possible, giving the staff excellent working conditions in a setting of aesthetic quality; he left the architect free rein, yet proved an attentive and demanding client. Although his proposals for rebuilding the town of Saint-Dié had failed, Le Corbusier accepted: he saw a chance to test his prototype of the green factory, devised for the Cité linéaire industrielle.

The rue de Sèvres studio put forward three proposals; the preliminary design was chosen in May 1947 and settled in April 1948. The site ran almost at the same time as that of the Unité d'habitation in Marseille, with collaborators in common. André Wogenscky directed it, Fernand Gardien followed the construction and Vladimir Bodiansky was the engineer.

The historic-monument listing dates from 1988 for the façades, roofs, the concrete structure on pilotis and the offices on the terrace, and from 2021 for the shed-roofed buildings. The factory is one of the sites of the series recognised on the World Heritage List in 2016. It still belongs to the Duval family.

To Le Corbusier the factory is made of three volumes: the pilotis, the garment workshops, then the office floor with the roof terrace. It connects to the pre-war buildings that survived, which were enlarged and reworked for the hosiery. The main building, of reinforced concrete, has three levels and stands on a double row of concrete pilotis. The offices, at roof-terrace level, were built from June to August 1949. At the ends, two blind gable walls of Vosges sandstone, salvaged from the demolished buildings, close the structure.

On the long sides are glass walls with timber frames. On the south-east side, the main façade received concrete brise-soleil, which ensure the staff's comfort and spare the fabrics prolonged exposure; they were the first in Le Corbusier's work in France, a few months before those of the Unité d'habitation in Marseille, and were designed by Vladimir Bodiansky and André Wogenscky. The north and south façades, dotted with green, yellow and white ceramic pavers, recall the loggias of Marseille; the north-west façade shows the curved volume of the waiting rooms.

The layout followed the production circuit: rolls of cloth went up by goods lift to the 3rd floor, where they were cut, then passed to the 2nd for finishing and making-up; the 1st floor was designed as a store. The goods lifts and chutes of this circuit, kept apart from the staff's, have since been removed. Beneath the pilotis are the main entrance, the porter's lodge, the bicycle park and the loading bay. Raw concrete, painted ceilings, glass slabs and paving sit side by side there; the entrance wall reuses stones taken from the town's pavements.

The roof terrace and the offices were treated with particular care. From the entrance hall the administration is on the left; to the right come the representatives' and management offices, and a meeting room. In the hall, a small helical stair links the offices and the workshops. The representatives' offices have oak plywood partitions and fixed furniture. The meeting room was carved out of the space first planned for the director's office; as in the architect's own studio flat, the two rooms are divided by a large door pivoting on an off-centre axis. The meeting room is furnished with chairs and a table by Jean Prouvé. Two terraces extend the offices; to the north-west, angled walls hide the neighbouring buildings and open the view onto the landscape.

As in Marseille, the site served as a testing ground for concrete, polychromy, the play of light through the brise-soleil and the use of the Modulor for proportions.

The textile mill is still working; the company mainly makes luxury knitwear for women.

The factory can be seen from the outside; it is not open to visits for the time being.