The Antigone District is a neighbourhood part of Montpellier, southern France, at . It is best known for its architectural design by Ricardo Bofill [1].
The district is built on the grounds of the former Joffre Barracks, of which nowadays only the Montpellier's citadel remains. In 1977, then mayor Georges Frêche started the process that led to the construction of the district.
The district's architect is Ricardo Bofill, from nearby Catalonia. It is designed in a grand neo-classical way, blowing up classical motifs such as pediments, entablatures and pilasters to gigantic scale. The district is located between the old centre of Montpellier and the river Lez. At the opposite site of the river, the Hôtel de la Région Languedoc-Roussillon is also designed by Bofill and together with Antigone makes for one great visual axis 1 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 hectares plot, has been one of the largest single development completed in France, and was extremely publicized worldwide. It dates back to 1979, when the newly-elected municipal council of Montpellier decided to undertake urban development and make 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 which would provide for the city’s balanced eastward expansion and link the historical centre to the river Lez. The Architect Ricardo Bofill designed 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 and landscape 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 Ricardo Bofill:
-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 Languedoc-Roussillon
-Le Port Juvénal (350 apartments )
-Hotel Mercure (5- star hotel )
-Le Parnasse (100 apartments)
-Le Capitole (apartments and shops)
-La Tour Europe (offices)
-Les Guinguettes (2 restaurants)
-Olympic Swimming Pool of Montpellier
