Pla Macià. Una casa, un árbol (Pla Macià. A House, a Tree)

The contact between architects from the East Group of GATEPAC and Le Corbusier, following the CIRPAC meeting held in Barcelona in 1932, would result in the drafting of a new urbanistic plan for the city. Continuing the Eixample of Ildefonso Cerdá, this new proposal put forward the creation of new blocks, four hundred metres wide, to house Corbusier’s famous redents, namely buildings in a block rising over fifty metres high and encircled by green spaces.
Nevertheless, Le Corbusier would not disregard a major occurrence in the social context of the time: rural exodus to the city. The population hailing from the country would be hard to accommodate with a home in such imposing structures. To facilitate their inclusion and mitigate a radical housing contrast, the architect devised Une maison, un arbre (A House, A Tree), a plan which comprehended the construction of intermediary, single-family housing. The ground floor was left clear to allow within the customary practices in the rural environment with regard to fire and water, for instance lighting fires and using water fountains.

Francisco Rojas Serrano