Antigone is a neighbourhood of

Montpellier Montpellier (; ) is a city in southern France near the Mediterranean Sea. One of the largest urban centres in the region of Occitania (administrative region), Occitania, Montpellier is the prefecture of the Departments of France, department of ...

France France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...

, east of the city centre. It is best known for its architectural design by

Ricardo Bofill Taller de Arquitectura Ricardo Bofill Taller de Arquitectura (RBTA) is an architecture firm that was founded in 1963 by Ricardo Bofill, initially as Taller de Arquitectura (). It is headquartered in Sant Just Desvern near Barcelona, in a former cement factory known a ...

History and design

The district is built on the grounds of the former Joffre Barracks, of which only Montpellier's

citadel A citadel is the most fortified area of a town or city. It may be a castle, fortress, or fortified center. The term is a diminutive of ''city'', meaning "little city", because it is a smaller part of the city of which it is the defensive core. ...

remains. In 1977, Mayor Georges Frêche started the process that led to the construction of the district. The district's

architect An architect is a person who plans, designs, and oversees the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to provide services in connection with the design of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the buildings that h ...

was the Spaniard

Ricardo Bofill Ricardo Bofill Leví (; 5 December 1939 – 14 January 2022) was a Spanish architect from Barcelona. He founded Ricardo Bofill Taller de Arquitectura in 1963 and developed it into a leading international architectural and urban design practice. ...

and his Taller de Arquitectura. He designed a series of grand neo-classical structures, enlarging classical motifs such as

pediment Pediments are a form of gable in classical architecture, usually of a triangular shape. Pediments are placed above the horizontal structure of the cornice (an elaborated lintel), or entablature if supported by columns.Summerson, 130 In an ...

entablature An entablature (; nativization of Italian , from "in" and "table") is the superstructure of moldings and bands which lies horizontally above columns, resting on their capitals. Entablatures are major elements of classical architecture, and ...

s and

pilaster In architecture, a pilaster is both a load-bearing section of thickened wall or column integrated into a wall, and a purely decorative element in classical architecture which gives the appearance of a supporting column and articulates an ext ...

s to gigantic scale. The district is located between the old centre of Montpellier and the river Lez. On the opposite side of the river is the ''Hôtel de la Région

Languedoc-Roussillon Languedoc-Roussillon (; ; ) is a former regions of France, administrative region of France. On 1 January 2016, it joined with the region of Midi-Pyrénées to become Occitania (administrative region), Occitania. It comprised five departments o ...

'', another Bofill design. Together they make for a unified visual axis one kilometre in length, nicknamed ''the Champs-Élysées of Montpellier''. After Antigone, more sites on this side of Montpellier were developed. The buildings consist mostly of low-income housing, public facilities and local shops. The Antigone project, on a 36-hectare plot, has been one of the largest single developments completed in

and attracted worldwide interest. In 1979, the newly elected municipal council of

decided to undertake urban development and develop a new district on a site near the city centre. The purpose of this town-planning operation was to develop a new district along a central

axis An axis (: axes) may refer to: Mathematics *A specific line (often a directed line) that plays an important role in some contexts. In particular: ** Coordinate axis of a coordinate system *** ''x''-axis, ''y''-axis, ''z''-axis, common names ...

which would provide for the city's balanced eastward expansion and link the historical centre to the river Lez. The architect Ricardo Bofill created the master plan and most of the buildings in Antigone. From the design of the plazas to the details of the facades and exterior

furniture Furniture refers to objects intended to support various human activities such as seating (e.g., Stool (seat), stools, chairs, and sofas), eating (table (furniture), tables), storing items, working, and sleeping (e.g., beds and hammocks). Furnitur ...

and

landscape A landscape is the visible features of an area of land, its landforms, and how they integrate with natural or human-made features, often considered in terms of their aesthetic appeal.''New Oxford American Dictionary''. A landscape includes th ...

elements, everything is proportionally and thematically related, creating a stylistic unity in a district full of boulevards and plazas, parks, major residential areas, shops, schools and sports, cultural and administrative facilities. Antigone's projects designed by Bofill included: * La Place du Nombre d'Or (288 apartments and shops) * Les Echelles de la Ville (offices) * Les Rives du Lez (landscape design of Lez riverbed) * Headquarter of the Regional government of

* Le Port Juvénal (350 apartments) * Hotel Mercure (five-star hotel) * Le Parnasse (100 apartments) * Le Capitole (apartments and shops) * La Tour Europe (offices) * Les Guinguettes (restaurants, bars, nightclubs) * Olympic Swimming Pool of Montpellier

Critical reception and commentary

Prominent architectural historian Vincent Scully wrote of the project in 1988: "Using classical architecture to provide human scale and proportion, Antigone intends to breaks up the monotony of precast construction to generate a palace for the people. It is the classical language rethought and reconstituted in terms of the contemporary industrial technique of precast concrete construction, assembled piece by piece in a discrete order even more systematic than that sustained in the older, carved and hand-modelled way of classical building." In an interview with architectural writer Carson Chan in 2014, Bofill said of Antigone: "I saw it as a model urban design project that could be a prototype for other places. I thought the French would take this project as a model for social housing and repeat it. I thought the world would take it as a model for housing developments. Then I realised that there could never be a model for a city or development. I think that kind of attitude toward development was my biggest mistake. There are no models for the future."

Transport

Antigone is served by lines 1 and 4 of the Montpellier tramway. There are three stops: Antigone, Léon Blum and Place de l'Europe.

Gallery

Image:Maquette Montpellier (4).JPG, Model Image:Antigone Esplanade de l'Europe.jpg, Antigone Esplanade de l'Europe north Image:QuartierAntigoneDecembre2021 2.jpg, Antigone by night, Montpellier, december 2021 Image:AntigoneDecembre2021.jpg, Antigone by night, Montpellier, december 2021

References

External links