Tour In Nova, Bordeaux

Last week I did a day-trip to Bordeaux (the so beautiful "La belle-endormie"). As the train approached Saint Jean (the gorgeous main train station nicelly refurnished a few years ago) I could see in the distance a new addition to the city's skyline, the Tour In Nova. Bordeaux is a low rise city, with whole neighbourhoods made up by 1 - 2 stories buildings (though not as low rise as Toulouse, probably the lowest-rise mid-size city in the world). This listing about Bordeaux buildings seems quite accurate to me. As you can see it got 3 (unappealing I can say) administrative towers in the 70's, peaking at 90 meters, and then some residential towers that I assume are mainly in Grand Ensembles.

However, in the last years some new, interesting "towers" (in France anything above 40 meters is a tower) and modern neighborhoods have been-are being built. La Cité du Vin is a prominent example. This building is located in the new Bassins a Flot area, where you'll find tons of 8-9 stories residential (and some office) buildings with interesting shapes, roofs and facades.

The other most notorious development area is the Euratlantique district, close to the main train station. I've seen this area emerge over the last years and I was feeling a bit disappointed so far, but the Tour In Nova has been a great surprise. Though not reaching 60 meters in height it's well visible when you enter the city, and the upper block looks really, really nice to me. It reminds me of the BEC tower in Bilbao (that is higher, but not that beautiful). It's a real shame that the crazy French security laws concerning high-rise buildings, that force you to keep a dedicated security team in place in buildings higher than 60 meters (well, it's a simplification, but you get the idea) prevented it from getting some additional floors (with 5-6 extra floors to reach 75-80 meters it would certainly stand out quite more). Anyway, if it had not been that law it would have been some "rednecks against modernity" citizens group who would have fight against such a "skyscraper"...

I can not close this post without mentioning the main reason for my last trip to Bordeaux, Les Bassins de Lumières. Some French people still have amazing ideas, living up to the glorious cultural traditions of the country. To leverage an enormous submarine base created by Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany during the occupation, to create a massive Digital art center (that opened just one month ago) is for sure one of those amazing ideas. Bordeaux is well worth a several days visit, and this new cultural space is well worth an afternoon.