Meudon-la-Forêt | Résidence le Parc, Paris

«I thus threw myself wholeheartedly into Meudon-la-Forêt, a superb stone construction project. The stone was cut by Marcerou, who died shortly after, and came from quarries owned by Blanchette, who joined Chevallier to ‘finance’ this operation. I examined hundreds of plans and of calculations, always with the same enthusiasm and confidence. I obtained the best prices, and built a noble and monumental composition. The fountains and pathways of Versailles served as models, and the scale was established. As in the case of Climat de France I erected a monumental and cyclopic project to house the less fortunate. The composition included two shopping centres installed in old houses, as if one had wanted to preserve a testimony from the past on a more human scale amidst these tall and long buildings. Immense stone piers made up the facades, like a screen. These structures concealed the openings within infinite perspectives, evoking the blank walls of temples or fortresses.

I wanted the largest urban basin to occupy the centre of the composition. Its surface exceeded that of the basins of the Tuileries and of the Luxembourg. […]
[…] Meudon had come out of my studio finished and ready, beating all the records of cost and quality. As in Rue Quincampoix, the subscribers signed by hundreds every day, from six in the morning to eleven at night. Regarding this, I think I can affirm that if my competitors at all levels of the profession had forgiven me for having launched the difficult Salmson operation [Le Point du Jour complex in Boulogne-Billancourt], the same people were overwhelmed and amazed by Meudon-la-Forêt: if I had managed to build and sell an ensemble as important as Meudon at fifty thousand francs per square metre, this meant I was the devil in person, and the devil had to be sent to hell».