Les Arcades du Lac, Le Viaduc and Les Temples du Lac

Ricardo Bofill and his practice, the Taller de Arquitectura, began designing Les Arcades du Lac in 1974, and construction ran from 1978 to 1982. It was the first large-scale operation Bofill carried out in France. It formed part of the new towns policy, which created whole towns on the outskirts of Paris to relieve congestion in the centre.

The original scheme was contested: a battle set the planning authority (the Établissement public d'aménagement) against the commune of Montigny-le-Bretonneux, which objected to its gigantic scale, and the operation was finally cut back. Bofill drew on the Château de Versailles, hence the nickname “Versailles for the people” given to the operation, which for a long time identified Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines. For Bofill, architecture should “magnify the everyday” and let users “live in a work of art”.

The ensemble brings together Les Arcades, facing the artificial lake of La Sourderie; Le Viaduc, on the water; and, on the Voisins-le-Bretonneux side, Le Temple and Les Templettes. It revisits the decoration of classical architecture with modern building techniques: prefabricated elements and concrete tinted throughout its mass.

The starting point is the relationship between technology and architectural history. The buildings take up the elements of a French formal garden at a completely different scale: the hedges become buildings. The layout draws a street, for getting around, and a square, for meeting. A large underground car park links all the blocks, so the scheme keeps the streets for pedestrians; some are lined with porticoes. The programme also includes squares and gardens on the lake shore.

The buildings of Les Arcades form a façade on the lake and four square courtyards, 50 metres on a side. They have a ground floor and three upper floors, and every apartment has a double aspect. The stairs sit in pavilions that project from the façade, serving two doors per landing and leading down to the car park.

Continuing the line of the street and the central square, Le Viaduc reaches out over the lake, a retention basin of 16 hectares. Its apartments are built above the water, in the French tradition of castles built on bridges, especially in the Loire valley. They are reached at ground level along a pedestrian street made of small bridges linking the ground floors of its six blocks; the vertical circulation cores occupy the centre of the north façade.

It is a lived-in residential development whose programme mixes social housing (HLM) and homes for sale. Its outdoor spaces encourage practical as well as convivial uses.

The ensemble is seen from the outside; Bofill's reputation draws walkers and visitors to it. It lies on rue Jacques Cartier in Montigny-le-Bretonneux; Le Temple and Les Templettes stand in the neighbouring commune of Voisins-le-Bretonneux.