Yap Seow Choong

Yap loves design, travel and everything beautiful in life. He writes for various media about travel and design and has published works, including Wander Bhutan and Myanmar Odyssey. Formerly publisher of Lonely Planet (China Office), Yap is now Chief Content Officer of Youpu Apps, a Beijing based travel app company.


The transition from an industrial city to a creative city

04 2018 | Issue 26

After an hour of car ride from Lyon, the delicate French city famous for its refined urban details, we reach Saint Etienne. Saint Etienne was a renowned industrial city twenty years ago, but as the manufacturing industry in Europe gradually declined, the city seemed to lose all its glories accumulated over the era of industrialisation. 


As the world further evolves into a new future, it appeared to Saint Etienne that transformation was urgently needed to stay prosperous. And so, the French city started to turn to the design and creative industry that is trending and creates less pollution. Since 1998, Saint Etienne has been hosting the reputable design exhibition Biennale Internationale de Design de Saint-Étienne, attracting flocks of visitors coming from all over the world. The city had also invited the world-class architect Norman Foster to be the designer of the city’s new opera house Zenith. All these new changes from Saint Etienne are helping the city to gain public attention and stay relevant. 


Besides all the industrial strengths Saint Etienne had built over the years, Saint Etienne enjoys an urban environment suited for the development of creative industries. According to what the local tour guides said, people in Saint Etienne have a great business mind while being good at pushing for innovations. One of the largest supermarket chains in France, Casino, for instance, was founded in Saint Etienne in 1860. In 1885, Manufrance set up the first mailing service company in France. Prestigious architect and urban planner Le Corbusier once came up with the plan of Urban City, receiving great recognition from the local mayor at that time. The mayor eventually decided to give Le Corbusier a piece of land in Firminy, which is seven kilometres away from Saint Etienne to experiment with his urban city plan. 


Born in 1887 in Switzerland, Le Corbusier had been one of the most important architects active in the French architect community in the 20th century. Being a pioneering figure known for his modern and international architecture designs, his works can be seen around the globe such as in Europe, the U.S., and India, etc. despite the quantity. His most famous design is located in the northeast of France, known as the Notre Dame du Haut. The city planning projected titled as Firminy-Vert was considered as the most progressive urban plans in Europe at that time. The original plan included three high apartment towers (only one was built), a stadium, music hall and a church, etc. Besides the Indian city Chandigarh, Firminy is the district that boasts the most architectures designed by Le Corbusier. 


The Church of Saint-Pierre is the most worth-seeing and legendary architecture coming from this project. The construction of this incredible church had been a tale of ups and downs. The construction only started five years after the architect passed away and lasted till 1978 and was suspended for the lack of funding. In 2002, under the support of the Saint Etienne city government, the church construction was resumed under the protégé of Le Corbusier. In late 2006, the church was finally built, 41 years after Le Corbusier’s passing. 


The first moment you see the Church of Saint-Pierre you will notice the hat-shape and 33-meter-high rooftop, which can be seen even from afar. Besides serving as a religious practice space, the church is also open to visitors and charges visitors an entrance fee. The ground floor of the church was originally designed as monks’ living quarter, which is now an exhibition hall of Le Corbusier, showcasing the architect’s architect design models, drawing, furniture, etc. and tells the life stories of the architect. Entering the nave of the church, the visitors will see natural lights coming through the rooftop and the three windows with different shapes and colours on the wall. Shadows and lights form different shapes inside the church. The cross on the chancel on the other hand is presented in a way that doesn’t seem to make it pop in the church in the eyes of the visitors. There are countless small holes on the wall, through which visitors can see the light of the Orion when praying. 


After the church visit, the guide took us to the nearby international apartment building Unité d’Habitation. 60 years ago, Le Corbusier finished his very first international apartment architect in Marseilles and later brought this concept to other European cities. When the international apartment building was first open to public in Marseilles, it received heavy criticisms from the locals, who considered the building was the house of a mad man. Nobody believed there would be anyone that would like to live in a tall apartment tower that looks like a bird cage. But time has proven Le Corbusier’s pioneering vision. 


The building is 15-storey high and constructed with plain cement with the design concept of simplicity and functionality. Part of the external walls was painted in red, yellow and blue. Le Corbusier proposed this deign with the intention of easing the population pressure in urban cities. The international apartment building is just like a small city within a city. Besides living spaces, the lower floors are designed as commons. Inside the building, there is even a kindergarten. The living apartment spaces are connected through long halls, similar to the streets in cities. At present, half of the apartments in this building have been made as affordable housing for low-income residents, while the other half of the apartments are available on the open market. According to what the tour guide said, despite the complex environment around the apartment building and the inconvenient transportation access, many people are still competing for an apartment here because of Le Corbusier’s reputation, believing that the apartments here have great investment potential.