Montpellier unveils four future architectural "crazes"

The architects Odile Decq, Manuelle Gautrand, Ellen van Loon and the duo Thomas Coldefy-Isabel van Haute designed these four projects, selected by the town hall from 18 applications.

"Montpellier, at the turn of the 80s, was strongly committed to a message: that of a form of hospitality to all creators of the mind, whether scientists, artists, architects", declared Mayor (PS) Michaël Delafosse during the presentation of the winners. A tribute to the architect Ricardo Bofill, designer of the monumental Antigone district wanted by the former mayor Georges Frêche (1977-2004).

Among these "follies" - or extravagant residences from an architectural point of view - Odile Decq has designed a building with white walls, a bright red roof and globular windows, which will house coworking offices, near the Corum congress center .

Manuelle Gautrand's project, in the Port Marianne district, consists of a set of residential buildings in sunken earth, which will face an already built folly, designed by the architect Farshid Moussavi.

Ellen van Loon has created a project of three buildings whose shape recalls that of pebbles, at the administrative limit of the municipality.

The Thomas Coldefy-Isabel van Haute duo imagined two buildings, one for housing, the other for offices, facing each other and connected by a footbridge, in the recent Ovalie district, very close to the rugby stadium.

The city has not set a date for the delivery of the buildings, which could take four to six years.

The fifth "madness" for which the city had launched a call for applications, in the New Saint-Roch district near the station, was not awarded, the projects presented not having convinced.

Montpellier, which has regularly called on star architects or designers (Jean Nouvel, Christian Lacroix, etc.) for its major urban projects, plans to build eight additional "follies", for which the winners will be known at the end of 2023 or the beginning of 2024.