Grenoble, a two-thousand-year-old city with a rich history and artistic heritage, is also a showcase for modern architecture. Discover around twenty buildings designated as ‘20th Century Heritage,’ ranging from art deco masterpieces to the first positive energy building.
Urban marvels
Grenoble has more than mountain views!
The Perret Tower, built in 1925 as the world’s first reinforced concrete tower, was crafted to gaze upon the peaks. But there’s more!
The city is home to architectural icons linked to the invention of precast concrete, often called “grey gold.” Keep an eye out – you’ll find these gems all around when looking up!
The most exotic building of them all is on the slopes of the Bastille, just before the entrance to Grenoble: the Casamaures, an unlikely neo-Moorish palace full of arabesque designs and colonnades dating from the mid-19th century, is a little masterpiece of imitation stone. It is worth a visit, but for now, let’s cross the river Isère and enter the modern city.
There’s no shortage of ‘Instagrammable’ façades here. When Grenoble-born Louis Vicat perfected quick-setting cement in 1817, he paved the way for all kinds of daring ornamental and constructional designs, like the elephants with their long trunks that adorn a façade on rue Félix Poulat.
This 1903 cement-brick building is a true manifesto of the art nouveau style, with its scrolls and plant motifs that flourished at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
But in Grenoble, it’s art deco that predominates, reflecting the style of the Bauhaus school with its sleek lines.
With projecting sections, rounded corners, wrought ironwork and flowing balconies behind a striking art deco façade, the spiral car parking garage (garage hélicoïdal) at 2 rue Bressieux in Grenoble’s inner city is a hallmark of the art deco aesthetic of modernity.
Built in 1932 and listed as a historic monument in 1989, it is also a feat of reinforced concrete architecture, concealing 225 parking boxes across seven floors behind a gated entrance. It’s well worth a visit!
Elsewhere in Grenoble, advancements in reinforced concrete and metal beams ignited a wave of architectural freedom. Towering buildings and wide-reaching loggias redefined the skyline, embodying a spirit of limitless creativity.
After the Second World War, architects broke even further from traditional rules and embraced the modern era with the construction of the Grand Boulevards, avenues built on the site of the old city walls. The pioneering Le Gambetta-Rivet building, designed by Servonnet, impresses with its monumental 31-metre-high pediment and shell-shaped balconies. Not far away, behind the Boulevard Foch, the Mercure with its entirely glazed curtain-wall façade is also worth a photo.
The legacy of the 1968 Olympics
The remarkable construction feats leading up to the 1968 Winter Olympics set the stage for Grenoble’s transformation. Along the B tramway line, you’ll encounter some of the city’s most ambitious architectural achievements. The monumental town hall, with its spacious courtyard by Maurice Novarina and Jean Prouvé, epitomises modernist elegance, while the iconic Three Towers – once the tallest in Europe – proudly display their honeycomb-patterned façades. Jean Prouvé’s Alpexpo hall and the ice stadium with its bold concrete shell structure in Paul Mistral Park are further symbols of Grenoble’s avant-garde spirit.
And let’s not forget the Grenoble Museum, on Place Lavalette, built by Groupe 6 to house its works of art, now approaching its thirtieth anniversary.
Further south on tramway line A, another landmark is the Maison de la Culture (MC2). This flagship venue clad in white enamelled sheet metal was designed by Modernist architect André Wogenscky in 1968 and later redesigned and enlarged by Antoine Stinco at the end of the 20th century.
Two hundred years after the cement revolution, the capital of the Alps remains a testing ground for modern development: France’s first eco-neighbourhood, the Bonne barracks, inaugurated in 2003, is a small green enclave around a reservoir.
In 2025, the Perret Tower will mark its centenary. Restoration work is underway, preparing for the tower to reopen its summit to visitors. This rare opportunity will allow people to admire not only the tower’s evolving architectural heritage but also the sweeping views over the surrounding massifs.
Grenoble wasn’t built and can’t be visited in a day!
