When Le Corbusier wanted to destroy the Marais

The Voisin Plan, designed between 1922 and 1925 by the Franco-Swiss architect Le Corbusier, was a radical urban redevelopment project aimed at transforming the center of Paris, particularly the Right Bank.

Funded by aircraft manufacturer Gabriel Voisin, this proposal calls for razing 240 hectares, including the Marais, to build a business district consisting of 18 60-story skyscrapers, surrounded by green spaces and connected by wide highways.

Le Corbusier aimed to modernize Paris by replacing Haussmannian and medieval architecture with a functional city adapted to the automobile age. This project would have profoundly disrupted the historical and architectural identity of the Marais, erasing its old neighborhoods, private mansions, and picturesque streets in favor of an ultra-modern and streamlined city.

This plan was never implemented, partly because of its extreme radicalism and the opposition it aroused, but its principles influenced modern urban planning throughout the world.

André Malraux, then Minister of Culture in the 1960s, played a crucial role in derailing Le Corbusier's Plan Voisin. While respecting the architect's work, Malraux firmly opposed the massive demolition of old Paris that the project called for.

He preferred to safeguard and restore historic districts, particularly the Marais, through the creation of the Malraux law in 1962, which established protection of architectural heritage and favored renovation rather than destruction.

This law helped to preserve the identity and charm of old Paris, thus corresponding to the implementation of the Plan Voisin, which would have disfigured the historic center of the capital.