Photographer Fred Lyon has been called "San Francisco's Brassai". He's also been compared to Cartier Bresson, Atget and Andre Kertez, but all with a San Francisco twist. Now 91, his nonstop career reaches back to the early 1940's and embraces news, architecture, advertising, wine and food. In the golden years of magazine publishing his picture credits were everywhere from LIFE to VOGUE and beyond. These days find him combing his picture files for galleries, publishers and print collectors. And he's still excited when he gets a call offering a new project.
L'école maternelle de l'unité, built in 1968, by Le Corbusier is a kindergarten and elementary school located on the top two floors of a 19-story housing block planned as a utopian community in the working-class town of Firminy, near Lyon. The classrooms are organized along a long hallway, all oriented in one direction. The walls of the hallway, opposite the classrooms, are pierced with multi-colored windows scaled for children's height, a touch that adds a great deal of color and play of light to the interiors. Classrooms feature specific activity zones, delineated by the built-in furniture, including reading circles. Throughout, the architecture, fixtures, and all furnishings are scaled for the young students. The interiors are extremely well-suited for interactive, activity-based learning that fosters community.














