Got acrophobia? Move into this apartment building (Feb, 1968)
Cool looking building, but what is that Eye of Sauron looking thing on the bottom?
The address is15 Boulevard Maréchal Leclerc 38000 Grenoble, France (Charlie’s Loyal Minions)
Got acrophobia? Move into this apartment building
Acrophobia is a dread of height. The designers of this 28-story apartment building in Grenoble, France, say the repetitious pattern of the balconies on its face is just dandy for people who suffer from that ailment because it suggests solidarity. Each box balcony is 13 feet tall, 10 wide, and five deep.
The boxes were cast on the site. Their sides are a continuation of the building’s reinforced concrete walls. The horizontal portions are cantilevered extensions of the structural floor slabs. The building stands on a circular concrete base 131 feet in diameter and three feet thick, resting on wet soil of an ancient riverbed.
take it from an acrophobe, a repeating (and ugly) pattern that can only be seen from the outside of the building will do exactly squat when you’re looking down from a top floor balcony. it’s not a lack of solidarity that sets off the phobia, it’s the altitude.
This is ‘l’Ile Verte”; there’s a total of three of these towers in the development. This picture doesn’t do justice to the setting of the buildings, with mountains in the background.
Wouldn’t it be easier on acrophobes to just build a building without balconies?
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, the French are weird!
go to google maps
at the corner of Boulevard Maréchal Leclerc and Rue Commandant l’Herminier
Gorgeous! Mind you, I’ve always loved late ’50s / ’60s apartment innovations, like “Habitat ’67″. This one is really really nice.
I live in Grenoble. Here, we call these towers “les choux-fleurs” (The Cauliflowers)…
These are the only towers in this quite small city.. It was built for the 1968 Olympics games…
DrewE is totally right : check this picture out > http://www.devis-demena…
Oh and i’ve said it before and i’ll say it again, the Hirudinea are weird!
btw : very good blog, please keep up the good work !
Ah the 1968 olympics. I wonder what happened to Jean-Claude Killy?
@ Nico – The Cauliflowers, LOL, that’s the perfect name, and if you ever get bored of them you can paint them green and call them “les broccoli”! Oh, and Hirudinea are weird, I admit it.