Familistère de Guise

Le Familistère de Guise is a remarkable 19th-century social housing complex and museum site in Guise, northern France, built between 1858 and 1884 by industrialist Jean-Baptiste André Godin as the "Social Palace" — a worker housing experiment associated with his Godin foundry. The site includes Godin's apartment, the central pavilion, the laundry-pool, the economats and the theatre, presenting a century of social experimentation in workers' housing, education, leisure and cooperative ownership. The Familistère is regenerated through the long-running Utopia programme.