Les Espaces d’Abraxas, an architectural utopia overtaken by reality

NOISY-PE-GRAND: In the morning, when the city of Espaces d’Abraxas is still sleeping, a few tourists venture there to Instagram its monumental dystopian architecture famous as far as Hollywood. But from noon in this Parisian suburb, the lookouts settle down on their folding chairs and hunt the curious: the drug trade resumes its course. Behind … Read more

“Hunger Games”, “Brazil”…: the Espaces d’Abraxas, once popular with cinema, are now stricken

When they were designed by the Spanish star architect Ricardo Bofill, the Abraxas were intended as a break with the soulless HLM bars of large housing estates. “It was a time of utopian ideology,” says Yann Minh, a 65-year-old artist who has lived in the Theater building since 2017. “The discourse of the time was … Read more