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Bodiansky, Vladimir
(b Kharkiv, 25 March 1894; d Paris, 10 Dec 1966). French engineer of Ukrainian birth. He trained as a civil engineer in Moscow and worked on the construction of the Bukhara-Kabul railway before serving as a pilot in the tsarist army. The October Revolution of 1917 forced him to emigrate to Paris, where he received a degree in aircraft engineering from the Ecole Nationale Supérieure de l’Aéronautique (1920). After three years in the Belgian Congo (now Zaire), Bodiansky worked as a designer for various aircraft builders and also established his own aircraft company in 1930. He then went into private civil engineering practice in 1931, adapting his previous experience with aerodynamics, lightweight materials and prefabrication techniques to building projects; this marked the beginning of his significant but underestimated contribution to the development of modern architecture in France. He worked with Eugène Beaudouin and Marcel Lods on the prefabricated housing development of the Cité de la Muette (1932–4; destr.), Drancy, where the 15-storey towers were constructed of a light steel framework enclosed by reinforced concrete components, a process that became popular in France after World War II. It was also used in the Quarry Hill flats (1937; with R. A. H. Livett) in Leeds, 950 prefabricated units that Bodiansky built during his period as managing director of Mopin & Company (1933–9). Other work with Beaudouin and Lods included an entry to a competition sponsored by the Office Technique de l’Utilisation de l’Acier, an innovative design in steel and glass for a circular Palais des Expositions (1933; unexecuted) in La Défense, and the Maison du Peuple (1936–9; with Jean Prouvé), Clichy, an assembly hall and market building clad in metal panels. Bodiansky also served as technical consultant for Paul Nelson’s unexecuted projects for a ‘Maison Suspendue’ (1936–8) and a ‘Palais de la Découverte’ (1938; with Oscar Nitszchké). After World War II, when he met Le Corbusier, Bodiansky’s reputation and practice expanded considerably. In 1945–6, as a member of the French technical study mission, he travelled for several months in the USA. Upon his return he founded ATBAT (Atelier des Bâtisseurs), a multi-disciplinary group of architects, planners and engineers set up on Le Corbusier’s initiative originally to supervise the construction of the Unité d’Habitation (1945–52), Marseille, and which Bodiansky directed until his death. Through ATBAT-Afrique he also worked with Georges Candilis and Shadrach Woods on low-cost housing projects in Morocco. In 1947 he was technical consultant for the United Nations headquarters in New York, designed by a team including Le Corbusier and Oscar Niemeyer. He was a regular participant in the post-war meetings of CIAM and proposed a Habitat Charter at the congress held in Aix-en-Provence in 1953; he also taught at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris. His last major work was the Olympic Stadium (1961–3), Phnom Penh, Cambodia.
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