The buildings of the Frontal
Urban integration of the Frontale
Along the quay, widened to fifteen meters, de Mailly designs an alignment of buildings. The project includes four horizontal buildings, identical. One of them, of smaller dimensions, incorporates the new town hall of honour. The latter, conceived as an elementary cubic volume devoid of any ornament, is distinguished in the overall composition of the quay side by its white facade breaking on the alignment of the buildings. The destitution of its facade becomes the highlight of the famous Atlanteans of the sculptor Pierre Puget, arranged on both sides of the entrance and which are vestiges of the old town hall.
South façade, detail on tubular porticoes. Black and white photograph. Undated. South façade, detail on tubular porticoes. These structures could receive glazing. On the front, we see the neon lights. © Departmental Archives of Hauts-de-Seine. Nanterre. Fonds 28 J - Archives de l'agence de Mailly. Photo album.
The buildings have six floors, one of which is bordered by a terrace topped by a cement pergola. The still traditional design roof, gently sloping and covered by hollow tiles, is hidden behind the pergola which acts as a crowning.
The ground floor and the mezzanine house shops; the floors, apartments. The entrances, located on the north facade, open onto a stairwell associated with an elevator that allows traffic between the floors and that serves the apartments via superimposed corridors. In addition, the architect uses the principle of low passageways that preserve the privacy of residents by avoiding direct views of the interior. The level shift allows for a technical sheath hidden in the ceiling of the apartments.
This continuous front installation creates in the urban landscape a monumental unit, regular, purified of the "picturesque" roof breaks of the old port. Its volume, which does not exceed six floors, equivalent to the former waterfront, thus respects the scale of the city.
The paving of the quay, in limestone rubble laid in opus incertum, softens the orthogonal character of the buildings by its natural and rustic appearance. Exclusively reserved for pedestrians, this quay thus finds its function as a walk isolated from the hustle and bustle of the city. In his project, de Mailly already provides for the development of terraces of shops by the installation of metal tubular structures, intended to receive tents. The public lighting also designed from the beginning of the project is provided by neon lights fixed on these structures.
The replacement of the old blocks of buildings, wide and deep, by buildings of thin bars, allows to air the urban fabric while presenting in a remarkable way the promenade. On the ground floor of the buildings, at the level of the pedestrian and motorist, the shops, through, are completely glazed and ensure a transparency that allows, through the concrete framework, to see the spectacle constituted by the port.
This transparency is accentuated by the opening of windows between piles and by the large clearances provided between buildings.
Black and white photograph. Undated. North façade, detail on superimposed passageways. © Departmental Archives of Hauts-de-Seine. Nanterre. Fonds 28 J - Archives de l'agence de Mailly. Photo album. | Photograph in black and white undated. North facade, highlighting the transparency brought by the windows arranged between the stilts. The mezzanine reserved for shops, crossing, also brings light and transparency. © Departmental Archives of Hauts-de-Seine. Nanterre. Fonds 28 J - Archives de l'agence de Mailly. |
The innovation of the constructive party: between concrete and prefabrication
The construction site of the Frontale presents innovative aspects by the installation of a crane road that facilitates and accelerates the construction, by the large-scale exploitation of the technical potential of concrete, generalized here to the whole building, and by the design of prefabricated elements, used for the structure and curtain walls and manufactured in series from prototypes.
The structure, consisting of an assembly of columns and prefabricated beams, allows by the removal of the load-bearing walls, to obtain a free plan and to replace the walls with large bay windows.
This framework is based on foundations made up of three pile alignments.
Chemin de grue - Black and white undated photograph. Perspective view of the south façade and the dock. The image also shows the use of the crane path. © Toulon. Departmental direction of equipment, library, photo album "Reconstruction of the port of Toulon".
The floors and partitions are made from prefabricated elements, assembled within the structure.
de Mailly organizes the space on the principle of a single frame of 3, 33 meters, which allows him, according to the divisions, to create a whole range of apartments ranging from studio to T4 by the simple addition of separative partitions, themselves prefabricated.
Only the curtain walls are made of cut stone, a creamy limestone with a fine and regular grain, shaded with yellow or pink, extracted in the quarries of Brouzet, near Alès (Gard).
Floor plan of a common floor. Highlighting the 3, 33-metre structure. © Departmental Archives of Hauts-de-Seine. Nanterre. Fonds 28 J - Archives de l'agence de Mailly. Photo album.
The originality of the architectural party: between flatness and relief
The structural framework on which the frame is based enriches the composition of the facades by the regular mesh formed by the profiles of the posts and beams, left voluntarily visible. This principle of composition is particularly visible on blind side facades.
The south and north facades have an identical compositional principle based on alternation. To the south, the horizontality of the loggias bays alternates with the verticality of the French window bays; to the north, the horizontality of the passageways alternates with the verticality of the facades-screens that dress the stairwells.
However, beyond this common principle, the south and north facades are opposed by their treatments.
To the south, the loggias and French windows are arranged in the thickness of the volume, forming a double skin that absorbs any projecting element and thus affirms a general flatness. The multiplicity of loggias that decorate each apartment, gives the building a seaside tone.
South facade, flatness and composition set with railing, in tubes, claustras and parapet. © Departmental archives of Hauts-de-Seine. Nanterre. Fonds 28 J - Archives de l'agence de Mailly. Photo album.
Conversely, on the north facade, the passageways and the concave facades of the stairwells, projecting from the wall surface, thus create an accentuated relief that rhythm the linear perspective of the bar.
Interior volume: a functional distribution
The dwellings are through and organized according to a functional separation of spaces. To the north are grouped the service rooms: kitchen, bathroom, toilet and dryer. To the south, the reception and privacy rooms: living rooms and bedrooms, overlooking the loggia.This can be fully opened thanks to a clever system of hinged sashes, arranged on a metal rail hidden in the ground. Once opened, the continuity between the inside and the outside is made, without break, by the extension of the tile tiles. This system, used for hinged louvers that close loggias, allows to modulate the brightness of the rooms not only by the closure of one or more leaves, but also by the position of the blades that are adjustable.
In the living room, the twisted concrete pillar, left voluntarily apparent, becomes an element of decoration.
The facilities, planned by the architect, reveal a high level of comfort: kitchen with fitted wardrobes, flat-top, clothes dryer, garbage disposal on landing, collective room on the ground floor for strollers and bicycles, central heating.
Detail on the dim light provided by the louvers of the loggia. These louvers are built by the Baudisson Company in La Seyne-sur-Mer, using a patented system. © Archives départementales des Hauts-de-Seine. Nanterre. Fonds 28 J - Archives de l'agence de Mailly. Photo album.
The scenery
The south facade is punctuated by the alternation of the grey colour of the concrete and the white colour of the stone that individualises the spans of loggias and French doors. This sober harmony is enhanced by bright colors: green, yellow, orange and blue, applied randomly on the hinged louvers of the loggias. The roller shutters of varnished wooden patio doors also contribute to the general polychrome.
The decoration is also expressed by the alternating use of concrete parapets and metal tube railings as well as honeycombed concrete claustras. All these elements contribute to the animation of the facade through the play of shadow and light.
On the other hand, the monochrome north façade displays a more sustained decorative complexity. The division into bays is no longer perceived by the simple alignment of the bays, but by the juxtaposition of various filling elements that create an organized decorative abundance, echoing the spontaneous architectural diversity of the facades of the old city. The richness of the decoration no longer results, as in the past, from ornaments brought back but from structural and functional elements, put end to end, which harmonize by their forms and textures: rectangular stone panels, glass pavers, horizontal blades of dryers, guardrails of passageways and claustras of stairwells.
The southern and northern façades are thus opposed, not only in the treatment of their surfaces, one plane, displaying a strong orthogonality, the other, in relief, eventful or even baroque; but also in their colouring, one polychrome, the other monochrome.
The only non-structural decorative elements are crude concrete obelisks arranged on either side of the stairwells to indicate the entrances.
The presence of the planters leaning against the screen walls of the stairwells allows to soften the roughness of the architectural decoration in concrete by the insertion of creeping plants, which create a vegetal curtain on the claustras whose shape is reminiscent of a trellis.
The planters leaning against the screen walls of the stairwells. © Archives départementales des Hauts-de-Seine. Nanterre. Fonds 28 J - Archives de l'agence de Mailly. Photo album.
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