Saint-Cézaire-sur-Siagne - Riviéra 2 Retirement Unit
- department: Alpes Maritimes
- municipality: Saint-Cézaire-sur-Siagne
- naming: Riviéra Retirement Unit 2
- address: Route de Grasse, RD 13, 06530 St-Cézaire-sur-Siagne
- authors: Georges BIZE, Jacques DUCOLLET
- dates: 1970-71
- protection: unprotected assembly
- label patrimoine du XXe siècle: Commission régionale du patrimoine et des sites (CRPS) du 4 December 2014
Created between 1970 and 1971, the Riviéra 2 Retirement Unit Group is a group of five buildings with social selection for elderly, wealthy and autonomous residents.
Working in Algeria since the early 1950s, Georges Bize and Jacques Ducollet are close to the Corbuséenne school in Algiers and develop their own conception of urban planning and housing.
Back in France in the early 1960s, the two partners were quickly approached by the Société de Promotion Unité-Retraite (SPUR), which had just delivered a first prototype of residence-services in Aix-en-Provence. Since 1965, the architects have been working on a vast project to build Pension Units throughout the country. Of the six programmes planned, only four are coming out of the ground: Touraine 1 (Montrichard, Loir-et-Cher), Riviera 1 (Peymeinade, Alpes-Maritimes), Riviera 2 (Saint-Cézaire-sur-Siagne, Alpes-Maritimes) and Domaine des Réaux, a residence of great standing (Soisy-sur-École, Essonne).
Riviéra 2 was therefore one of the first French residential services, a program that did not really take off until the late 1970s. Detached from the hospital, the residence-services is a derivative of the home-housing, created in the 1950s by the Ministry of Reconstruction and Housing and managed by the HLM organizations. Unlike retirement homes reserved for residents in need of permanent medical attention, home-accommodation, like residential services, meets the demand of able-bodied seniors who are still independent.
Very representative of the corpus to which it belongs, the Riviera 2 group is composed of 5 buildings located in a large park (8 ha), downstream of the village of Saint-Cézaire. Each building constitutes a Retirement Unit and offers fully equipped and independent studios, gathered on a base comprising common services and giving access to a pleasure garden and the large landscape.
The well-mastered landscaping in a Mediterranean environment, the qualities of comfort, view and sunshine that it offers its residents via its spinning balconies and its mono-studios facing south, give the Unité Retraite de Saint-Cézaire-sur-Siagne a formal proximity to the resort architecture as it can be written in winter sports resorts and contemporary seaside resorts.
The Retirement Units buildings designed by Bize and Ducollet are constructed of poured reinforced concrete. The filling and partitioning elements (hollow clay bricks and concrete agglomerates) are standard industrial products. The qualities sought are the openness to the view, the absence of vis-à-vis, the small scale and the preservation of the site. To do this, the plan of the residences is quite similar: these "bars" of 4 floors on ground floor (50 to 80 residents maximum) are served by a central distribution tower (column of elevators) which allows to reach the corridors located at the back of the buildings. On the ground floor, the common areas and services are in direct connection with nature and the landscaped park. On the floors, apartments designed according to hygiene and functionality principles have practical storage and good sunshine.
The architecture of the Pension Unit refers to the work of the Corbusean school and to brutalism with the use of simple strong lines and smooth and rough surfaces. But the finishes and surface treatments, drawing explicitly from a regional vocabulary, tempered the radicality of the materials and forms of the masterpiece. They thus create a visual link between the architecture and the site. The coatings that cover the concrete are of "tone stone" color, according to the recommendations of the Departmental Director of Equipment and Housing.
The entrance pavilions and some pedestals are covered with dry stone siding. The facade of the balconies is clad in wood and has metal carpentry and roller shutters also made of wood. The floors of the balconies are covered with mini-tiles. The use of these traditional materials echoes the forest and limestone environment of the Siagne valley.
The whole has been little transformed during its use, but has been abandoned for more than twenty years.
- Editor: Eve Roy; source: Pierre-Antoine GATIER, Riviéra 2 Retirement Unit, Saint-Cézaire-sur-Siagne, Dossier d'évaluation patrimoniale, June 2014.
Partager la page