Michel Ecochard graduated from the Ecole des Beaux Arts Paris in 1929. He was influenced by the modernist ideas of industrialized construction and the studies of vernacular architecture around the Mediterranean Sea, initiated by August Perret in Paris. In 1930, only in his twenties, Ecochard started his first public works in Damascus, Syria under colonial rule. He was part of a French reconstruction team that restored the Temple of Bel in Palmyra, the Mosque of Bosrah, and the Azem Palace, that had become property of the French. His first work as an architect in the colonies is the Museum of Antioch, in which he started to translate historical Syrian architecture elements into the vocabulary of modernist aesthetics. In his later town planning work in the city center of Damascus he integrated the idea of the protection of historical monuments. In 1943 he worked on the first master plan for Beirut.
After the war, Ecochard participated with Le Corbusier, among others, in a study trip to the USA. He became a member of the CIAM, and he was commissioned by the UN for a housing study in Pakistan in 1946. Afterwards he was appointed head of the planning department “Service de l’ Urbanisme” in Morocco by the French protectorate. Here he led a huge urbanization program for Casablanca including layouts and research for a settlement for more residents. He established a zoning plan with high and low-density residential areas and defined traffic and communication axes like the Rabat-Casablanca highway. The most important part of his work was low-cost housing for Moroccan factory workers. A plan for a minimum residential unit, synthesizing fast industrial principles of construction with vernacular elements, was the so-called patio house.
He, like many other French architects and engineers, left Morocco in 1952 during the first general strikes and uprisings of the anti-colonial movement in Casablanca to settle in Paris. Later on he worked in Lebanon, Pakistan, Cameroon, the Ivory Coast, and Kuwait. In Beirut in 1955, he and another French architect, Claude Lecoeur, designed the College Protestant on Marie Curie Street as well as the Grand Lycée Franco-Libanais (1960), and the Sacra Coeur hospital in Hazmieh (1961). His plan for the University Centre of Sciences and Health in Yaoundé (Cameroon) groups many buildings on the same site, such as a university campus, hospital, reception, and family planning center. The National Museum of Kuwait and the Museum of Mohenjo-daro on the Indus in Pakistan were his last projects shortly before he died in 1985.(MvO)
Sources:
Abdulac, S. (1982): "Damas : les années Ecochard (1932-1982) ". Cahiers de la recherche architecturale, n°11. 32-44.
Bradel, V. (1986): Michel Écochard (1905-1985), Bureau de la recherche architectural/Institut français d’architecture.
Cantacuzino, S. (1985): Azem Palace. In: Cantacuzino, Sherban (Ed.): Architecture in Continuity. New York: Aperture.
Cohen,.J-L / Eleb, M. (2002): Casablanca - Colonial Myths and Architectural Ventures. New York: The Monacelli Press.
Ecochard, Michel (1955): Casablanca ou Le Roman d'une ville. Editions de Pars.
Ecochard, Michel (1955): Les bains de Damas, Vol 1 and 2, Institute Francaise, 1943
Ecochard, Michel (1980): "Karachi University." In: Safran, Linda (Ed.): Places of Public Gathering in Islam. Philadelphia: Aga Khan Award for Architecture.XX
Ecochard, Michel (1980): "The National Museum of Kuwait." In: Safran, Linda (Ed.): Places of Public Gathering in Islam. Philadelphia: Aga Khan Award for Architecture.XX
de Mazieres, N. (1985): "Homage."In: Environmental Design: Journal of the Islamic Environmental Design Research Centre 1. 22-25.
E. Verdeil, Michel Ecochard in Lebanon and Syria (1956-1968). The spread of Modernism, the Building of the Independent. States and the Rise of Local professionals of planning, published in "European Association of Urban History, 12th Conference, Lyon : France (2008)"
