Thursday, January 19, 2012

Architecture matters


I admire and enjoy brash, bold architecture. The work of the Catalan architect, Bofill, was much criticized when the complex in Marne-la-Vallée was first completed.

But I preferred it to the construction shown below... also built as almost a complete circle of poured concrete with a circumference of a kilometre. This is Héliopolis, part of the naturist resort at Cap d'Agde.


I spent many summer vacations there, only occasionally haunted by the architectural reminder of Betham's 'Panopticon'...


But at Cap d'Agde it was not all brutalist concrete. I have assembled some other shots I made on Flickr and posted them under the headline 'Paradomicile'.

1 comment:

Keef said...

In the final year of my Interior Design degree course, we visited Paris, and I took a trip out to Marne La Vallee with one of my colleagues who was doing her dissertation on Ricardo Bofill. I have to say the buildings look better in fotos than in the flesh.