Centre De Réadaptation Des Jeunes Chômeurs
(Rehabilitation Centre for the Young Unemployed)

Paris, France, 1938-1940

« At least we've finished the first Youth Centre in France. It's in Paris, in rue de la Bua in Ménilmontant: colours bursting out all over the place, frighteningly daring pigments. We found it all “a bit garish” but, apart from that, it exists »

Letter from Le Corbusier to Jose Luis Sert, 23 October 1940

Commission

The Centre Scientifique de la Main d’Œuvre (CSMO) and the association known as the “Centre d’Etude du Travail” (CET) were founded in 1938. Their director, the former Under-Secretary of State for Labour Philippe Serre, wanted to expand their premises situated in Paris, at N^os 9 and 11 rue Le Bua.

This development project was placed under the patronage of both the Minister of Labour and the Department of the Seine.

Centre de réadaptation des jeunes chômeurs © FLC / ADAGP

Project

The aim of the expansion was to facilitate reintegration of young unemployed people by providing them with facilities including apprenticeship workshops (carpentry, electricity, initiation into drawing, sculpture and radio broadcasting) as well as classrooms, accommodation and a large sports hall.

The project involved two buildings arranged around several courtyards. The first building, the larger and taller of the two, seems mainly to have concerned accomodation and day to day activity, although the plans show large rooms with no particular designation. The second building would appear to have been for offices, workshops and sanitary facilities. Differences in the height of the buildings correspond to roof differences (saw tooth trusses, double slope, etc.).

This project is sometimes called “Maison des Jeunes”, which explains the acronym “MJ” found on one of the plans. In a letter addressed to Jose Luis Sert, Le Corbusier calls it: “Atelier de Jeunesse de France”.

In the winter of 1939-1940, Le Corbusier gave the sign painter Raoul Simon the job of painting a gable wall. Simon had already produced a mural for Le Corbusier in Vézelay, and others for the Pavillon des Temps Nouveaux in 1937: “Simon from Vézelay has begun daubing demented colours all over the Youth Centre we’re fitting out in Ménilmontant” (Letter from Le Corbusier to his mother and Albert, 4 January 1940).