A modern garden city, La Butte-Rouge in Chatenay-Malabry.

Adorned in a pink that creates unity, the buildings of the garden city of Butte-Rouge in Châtenay-Malabry stand out against the green landscape of the Verrières forest. Low-rise dwellings, " half-moon » monumental, « skyscraper » local, schools, church… are subtly arranged according to the curves of the relief, according to the space left free by ancient trees.
This homogeneous ensemble built over several decades, very early on labeled “ 20th ^century heritage ", has no shortage of arguments to claim the status of a masterpiece of modern architecture. Planned at the beginning of the 20th century, it can also boast of being a precious and still intact witness to the European movement of garden cities, driven by the ideal of quality social housing.
However, due to a lack of sufficient protection, the whole of Butte-Rouge is the target of projects which, if carried out, would destroy all its architectural and landscape coherence and, with it, its primary purpose.
Will banners, ministerial commitments, and public statements be enough to save this heritage, which has been carefully rehabilitated until now? Or will the pressure on land in the Paris region be enough to get the better of it?
Conceived as a place to safeguard the history of Butte-Rouge, this monographic book, which advocates for the faithful preservation of the built environment, acutely highlights the limits of public action against the damage caused by real estate speculation and the trivialization of recent heritage. In its own way, it calls for the icons of social and collective housing to be considered in France as worthy imprints of our architectural history, to be defended and lived.