Les Colonnes de Saint-Christophe
Cergy-Pontoise

Site-specific artworks are frequently commissioned for new urban developments to enhance the public spaces. In a rare reversal of this logic, the design of the social housing complex Les Colonnes de Saint-Christophe was centered around a large-scale sculpture by Dani Karavan. The project was driven by the local Cergy-Pontoise town council, which sought to create affordable accommodation that also offered a civic symbol and high-quality public space for the newly formed community.

Karavan’s sculpture, L’Axe Majeur (The Major Axis), is a 3-kilometre-long landscaped route that stretches from Place des Colonnes to the opposite bank of the Oise River, passing through twelve “stations” – a series of terraced gardens and conceptual artworks. At the highest point of the landscape stands the Belvedere Tower, a 36-metre-tall concrete monolith with stairs and an observation platform, marking the starting point of the axis.

Les Colonnes follow the geometry of the sculpture: a six-storey building sweeps around the Tower to form a large semicircle, referring to John Nash's Circus and Royal Crescent in Bath, England. The Tower leans 1.5 degrees towards the building, where a gap the same width as the monolith has been carved out to maintain sightlines along the Axis. Opposite the crescent, two symmetrical four-storey courtyard buildings, which are connected to one another by a cross-shaped plaza lined with shops, enclose the public arena.

All apartments are dual-aspect and receive plenty of light through glazed facades at either end: windows framed by Georgian-style pediments on the courtyard buildings, and glass curtains between giant Doric columns on the crescent.