Collective social housing Les Arenes de Picasso

Contemporary concrete residential buildings of Les Arenes de Picasso in Noisy-le-Grand (Grand Paris) by Spanish-French architect Manuel Nunez Yanowsky (construction completed in 1984) are truly considered to be the most famous landmark of the Seine-Saint-Denis department of region Île-de-France. This architectural wonder is a real challenge to the construction and engineering technologies as well as to the imagination of the architecture lovers. Exiting surrealistic buildings in the form of the huge discs 50 m in diameter, held by the pedestals with arcades, envisage the allegory of sunrise and sunset and are set on the opposite sides of the octagonal square. The Pablo Picasso Place is one of the first important projects to be completely prefabricated architectonically thus proving the possibility of prefabrication of the complicated architectural shapes in concrete.
This astonishing architectural masterpiece houses 540 social housing units, boutiques and a secondary school. The octagonal square contains the playgrounds, landscaping design with the use of prefabricated elements, and the monumental sculpture by Miguel Berrocal in the center.
This building already has become the part of the European architectural heritage and is in the list of the international heritage of civil engineering.