Detail View: Archivision Base to Module 13: Antigone District

Collection: 
Archivision Base to Module 13
Preferred Title: 
Antigone District
Alternate Title: 
Antígone
Image View: 
Amphitheater east façade, detail exaggerated column base
Creator: 
Ricardo Bofill (Spanish , born 1939)
Location: 
site: Montpellier, Languedoc-Roussillon, France
Location Note: 
located between the old centre of Montpellier and the river Lez
GPS: 
+43.608056+3.89
Date: 
1979-1997 (creation)
Cultural Context: 
French
Style Period: 
Postmodern; Twentieth century
Work Type 1: 
housing project
Work Type 2: 
mixed-use development
Work Type 3: 
plaza
Classification: 
architecture
Material: 
precast concrete; glass; steel
Technique: 
construction (assembling); prefabrication
Subjects: 
architecture; contemporary (1960 to present); City planning; Housing; ideal cities
Description: 
[The district is built on the grounds of the former Joffre Barracks, of which now only the Montpellier citadel remains. Part of the development created a new visual axis 1 kilometre in length, nicknamed the Champs-Élysées of Montpellier.] Antígone (1979-1983), Montpellier, is a recent, axial city centre enclosing monumental volumes of Baroque scale and variety. The design of these multi-storey residential complexes, whose enclosed plazas are the antithesis of the fluid, abstract spaces of modernist urban planning, was based on classical rules, but interpreted with an absolute freedom that constantly transgressed the language, proportion and scale of canonical classicism, producing elements that are often distorted and enlarged to create a disturbing colossalism. The blocks were increasingly built with the use of industrialized construction techniques such as prefabricated concrete and curtain walling systems. Bofill?s re-creation of classical urban space with its emphasis on monumentality made him one of the
Collection: 
Archivision Addition Module Six
Identifier: 
1A1-BR-MA-A8
Rights: 
© Scott Gilchrist, Archivision, Inc.