La Fontaine Sporting Complex in Antony
- Peter Popp
Situated to the south of Paris in the town of Antony, with a population of 60,000, the La Fontaine sports centre presents itself as a matt-gleaming monolith with a crystalline broken metallic surface structure. The community, located only about 10 km from the Eiffel Tower, wished to create for itself a multifunctional sporting and cultural development that permits both public and academic activities and is accessible in different ways. Archi5 and Tecnova architecture developed a striking cubic form with a high recognition value. It generates a bold impulse in what is a heterogeneous environment consisting of high-rise blocks, housing strips and single-family houses. The rise and fall of triangular and rectilinear folded surfaces suggests an abstract mountain range. This hermetic impression is strengthened by the standing-seam sheet-metal cladding that encloses the structure on all sides, including the roof. Corrosion-resistant copper, aluminium and tin alloys mean that the facade becomes increasingly matt in the course of time, but that the golden colour tone is retained.
