© Barbara Gutglas, kindly provided by Docomomo France
Save La Butte Rouge Garden City!

Docomomo International would like to withdraw your attention to the alarming situation that the Butte Rouge Garden City, in Châtenay-Malabry, is still facing. This Garden City is threatened by the intention of the mayor of the city to accept the demolition of 15 buildings, despite all the efforts undertaken.

In order to continue to raise awareness, the Pritzker Prize and Grand Prix national de l’architecture
(the highest French prize for architecture) award-winners wrote a letter to Roselyne Bachelot, the French Minister of Culture.

“The Garden-city of la Butte Rouge has been recognized as one of the most exceptional social housing development of France and as a model city at international scale. We cannot possibly imagine it to disappear after having been destroyed by mechanical diggers to make way for property speculation, with complete disregard for its priceless value. Loss of its integrity or of its architectural coherence through the destruction of all the buildings or part of them or of its unique landscape would prove irreversible and a disgrace to France.
(…)
La Butte Rouge stands out as a model as far as garden-cities are concerned, the only one in France, possibly in Europe, to combine and display so cleverly urbanity, architecture, landscaping, social concerns and topography, while highlighting the hilly landscape of the southern part of the Seine department.
(…)
Instead of being torn down, the city needs to be preserved in its integrity, it also needs to be rehabilitated  with care and methodically as our Swiss neighbours did in Geneva when they worked on the Lignon (a building of the sixties whose rehabilitation proved a far more daunting task than the buildings of La Butte Rouge, or closer to us, as the Suresnes or Stains Garden-cities which are the pride of the local territory and of their inhabitants.”

To read the full letter: letter.pdf

The previous news by Docomomo International can be seen here [May 27, 2019] and here [December 10, 2020].