Saint-Laurent-du-Var - Horizon 80 Residence
- department: Alpes-Maritimes
- Municipality: Saint-Laurent-du-Var
- naming: Horizon 80 Residence
- address : 131 avenue de Verdun
- authors: Michel ANDRAULT, Pierre PARAT (architects)
- date: 1969
- protection: unprotected building
- label patrimoine XXe: Commission régionale du patrimoine et des sites (CRPS) du 16 November 2006
At the beginning of his career, in the fall of 1960, the architect Pierre Parat obtained on the recommendation of Georges Meyer-Heine a mission of the central administration: the project of development of the district of the sea in the commune of Saint-Laurent-du-Var. The architect’s proposal is complex and ambitious: it involves the construction of several marinas, tourist facilities and a large shopping centre. His master plan will not be implemented, the mayor preferring to call on a local architect-planner. It is during this period of work in Saint-Laurent-du-Var that Pierre Parat meets the Italian real estate developer Parrucci who offers him the project of a private beach residence. None of the many facilities designed by the architect will see the light of day and Horizon 80 remains its only achievement on the French Riviera.
This seaside residence combines an interesting plastic research based on the dichotomy and the clear separation between, on the one hand, the housing block with the structural parts expressed on the façade and, on the other hand, the arrangements for distributing housing. The result is absolutely unprecedented and extremely formal. The apartments are all open to the south thanks to the concentration of the distribution routes to the north, following a fairly conventional pattern that adapts perfectly to the character of the site allowing the opening of large loggias with sea view, while protecting against street side nuisances. The separation between the private spaces and the common areas leads to expel the vertical and horizontal connections to the outside, which become plastic elements of definition of the northern façade. The stairwell and elevator hopper are treated in pairs of cylindrical towers hooked to each other. Repeated three times, they produce, associated with the passageways they serve, a monumental effect of this facade. These "conduits", composed of prefabricated elements assembled leaving the joints visible, are completely autonomous. They are the most expressive markers of a composition party aimed at separating the various elements of the project and giving them autonomy and plastic integrity. The resulting aesthetic is assembly. The articulation of the five types of apartments (from P2 to P5 on one level or in duplex) is the basis of the composition of the loggias that characterizes the southern façade. It expresses a simple correspondence between the width of the frame of the supporting structure and that of the dwelling cells. Large flower trays, which contribute to the general assembly spirit of prefabricated elements, form railings.
Representative of a certain production of the agency ANPAR rather located in the Paris region, this building is also characteristic of a more general trend, in the period 1965-1975, to a design of basic forms, as from bending techniques (rounded corners) and assembly. Its formal expression, derived from a clear typological choice, is also related to the megastructural utopias that characterize the period.
- Editors: Jean-Lucien Bonillo & Raffaella Telese - Laboratoire INAMA/ ENSA Marseille, 2005-2008
Read also in Heritage of the 20th century, the study The Glorious Thirty in the Alpes-Maritimes
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