• The city of Montpellier is relaunching the Architectural Folies.

  • This urban planning project, which aims to offer buildings with crazy looks, had notably enabled the White Tree to emerge from the ground, in the Richter district.

  • Folies should be built in Ovalie, on the Lez or… on the roof of the Corum.

Montpellier (Hérault) relaunches the Folies.

And if the program unveiled by the town hall comes to an end, the city will look like, in a few years, a huge open-air architecture museum.

Initiated during the mandate of Hélène Mandroux (PS), the project, which aims to design buildings with crazy looks, had been abandoned by her successor, Philippe Saurel (various left).

Michaël Delafosse (PS), elected mayor in 2020, slips that the idea, which he had initiated as an elected official in town planning, was "brutally" and "unfairly" interrupted.

Only two of the twelve planned constructions have come out of the ground: the Divine Madness, in La Lironde, and the White Tree, in Richter, on the site of a disused building of a telecommunications leader.

Too bad, notes the mayor, because the Folies, beyond contributing to the cultural influence of Montpellier, do not cost the city a penny.

On the contrary, "it pays off", he confides, because "the land, we sell it to developers".

"We wanted to show that each neighborhood could have its madness"

Les Folies, continues Michaël Delafosse, “is the expression of an ambition, nourished by convictions.

The conviction that aesthetics are needed in a city.

That we must think of the city after Covid-19.

Think about the ecological issue.

And finally, how the making of the city nurtures culture.

“The city of Montpellier, which wants “innovative” and “offbeat”, explains Maryse Faye (PS), elected to town planning, has thus planned the construction of 13 new buildings, in the four corners of the city.

“We wanted to show that each neighborhood could have its madness,” notes the deputy mayor.

A first call for applications, intended for architects, landscape designers and builders, has been launched.

They can already start brainstorming to imagine the future Folies built on the Vernière block (at the Corum), near Place Manuguerra (at Parc Marianne), at République, at Nouveau Saint-Roch and at Ovalie.

The second will be launched in the fall.

It will concern the Folies created on the Lez (at the entrance to the town, at the level of the Chauliac bridge), at Cambacérès, at La Restanque, in the former officers' mess at Montcalm, at La Mosson, and at Beausoleil (where there will be two).

But also… on the roof of the Corum, where the heliport is located.

Note that not all of them will necessarily be apartment buildings.

They can also accommodate restaurants, offices, or cultural venues.

“Obviously, notes the mayor, on the roof of the Corum, it will not be housing.

" Then what ?

Answer next year, when the first images of future Folies will be unveiled.

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  • Languedoc Roussillon