Louise-Catherine, Historical barge in 13th arrondissement of Paris, France.
The Louise-Catherine is a reinforced-concrete barge moored at the Port d'Austerlitz in Paris's 13th arrondissement. Built in 1915 as the coal carrier Liège, it is about 70 metres long with a flat-bottomed hull. Le Corbusier and Kunio Maekawa redesigned its interior in 1929, adding horizontal ribbon windows.
The vessel was built in 1915 as a coal transport ship under the name Liège. In 1929, Madeleine Zillhardt purchased the ship and donated it to the Salvation Army.
The barge was transformed by Le Corbusier and Kunio Maekawa into a shelter with sleeping areas and communal spaces. This conversion shows how a transport vessel became a place of aid and refuge.
The vessel sits on an active riverside zone along the Seine and can sometimes be difficult to see clearly. Visitors should be aware that the area is constantly accessible, but direct access to the ship itself may be limited.
The barge sank in about twenty minutes on 10 February 2018, after a fault following a Seine flood, and stayed underwater for two years and ten months. It was refloated on 19 October 2020 with help from the Japanese Architectural Design Association of Nippon (ADAN), which had bought the vessel that August.
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