Mériadeck Architecture / Bordeaux

When thinking of Bordeaux, futuristic modern architecture probably isn't the first thing to come to mind. Similar to the slum clearance movement that was happening in the United Staes in the 1960s, Bordeaux city leaders, under a plan by city architect Jean Royer (not that Royer), began creating a series of high rise residential and commercial buildings in the working class neighborhood of Mériadeck. Although some building happened in the early 1960s, substantial construction under a modified plan by Royer did not start until the 1970s.

Allianz (Originally AGF) SCPA Arretche-Karasinki and Marcel Nouviale (1983)

Joël Gourvellec and Victor Maldonado (1983)

There is a network of pedestrian bridges over the streets connecting the buildings. This modernist scheme turned out to be a great way to effectively kill street vitality. Compared to almost everywhere else I visited in Bordeaux, Mériadeck is dead.

Le Ponant by Jacques Salier, Adrien Courtois and Patrick Fouquet (1979)

Caisse d'Epargne by Edmond Lay with Pierre Layré-Cassou and Pierre Dugravier (1977)

Lay moved from France to the United States in 1958 and spent time teaching at a handful of Universities. While there, he visited a number of buildings by Frank Lloyd Wright, who was a major influence on him. In 1961 Lay worked with former Wright fellow Paolo Soleri at Cosanti. The influence of Wright and Soleri in evident in the Caisse d'Epargne. There is a little Soleri mixed with the Guggenheim Museum in NYC and a big dose of French Brutalism.