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Renovation works are under way at the Espaces d’Abraxas, a unique neo-classical building in Noisy-Le-Grand, on the eastern outskirts of Paris. 

The project is expected to continue until 2027 and will cost an estimated €16.3 million, aiming to refurbish 600 apartments with improved insulation, upgraded systems, and new green spaces.

This is welcome news for residents and for Noisy-Le-Grand locals, who opposed a demolition plan two decades ago. It also signals renewed interest in a once divisive building complex, previously nicknamed ‘Alcatraz’.

The design partly evokes The Hunger Games, a Hollywood blockbuster from the 2010s whose trilogy finale was shot on location there. The film’s success brought positive publicity to Noisy-Le-Grand and the Seine-Saint-Denis department.

“It is my first architectural emotion. It triggers so many things when it comes to imagination. It is almost oniric,” said Elodie Bitsindou, a university lecturer at Ecole Supérieure des Professions Immobilières and PhD graduate of Sorbonne University.

Espaces d’Abraxas inspired her to study architecture at Sorbonne. Bitsindou, a native of Noisy-Le-Grand, recalls watching the building from RER train windows.

“It is both monumental and oppressive. I got a surface-level, grounded perspective from the train,” she said. “Once inside, you feel sucked into it.”

Espaces d’Abraxas was the brainchild of Spanish architect Ricardo Bofill, known for his leftist ideals and the communitarian lifestyle of Mediterranean populations. The building was completed in 1982.

Noisy-Le-Grand was one of several Parisian suburbs used as experimental grounds for Ville nouvelle, or New Town planning.

“The goal was to mix social classes together, and create spaces that would be used in various manners,” Bofill told Le Monde in 2014, eight years before his death.

“I did not want to build a traditional city, with its anonymous towers and the social problems they are known to bring,” he added, referring to ‘Grand ensemble’ housing projects.

Bofill envisioned Espaces d’Abraxas as an enclosed theatre, arched around three sections: the Theatre, the Palacio, and the Arch.

The Theatre contains 130 apartments with views of Paris, built around eight vertical access points and shaped like an amphitheatre. It faces the Arch and the Palacio.

The Arch rises nine storeys and includes 20 apartments, while the Palacio stands 18 storeys high with 441 apartments in a U-shaped layout.

“Bofill’s work represents a transposition of the social programme of the Ideal City, centered on public life and the city, into a private world emphasizing the family and the home,” wrote Anthony Schuman, a professor at Hillier College of Architecture and Design, in 1986.

“His formal symbols do not challenge us to think about the future. Instead, they offer a refuge in an idealized past, dressing up the status quo with dazzling images that promote a false consciousness,” he continued.

Utopia turned nightmare

Schuman’s article reads like science fiction in 2025. In just over 30 years, the post-modern utopia became a nightmare.

The novel prefabricated concrete that Bofill used, one of his career highlights, takes on pink hues in sunlight but turns grey in bad weather. Sheltered and hunched in on itself, Espaces d’Abraxas often feels prison-like.

The intended social diversity did not materialise.The Theatre was reserved for landlords, while the Palacio and Arch housed tenants, creating isolated resident ‘bubbles’.

Insalubrity, decrepitude, and insecurity gradually took hold.

“I did not change the way cities were built. No architect carried on reproducing my style,” Bofill admitted to Le Monde, calling Espaces d’Abraxas a failed experiment.

Bitsindou disagrees, pointing to the Arènes de Picasso, a neighboring complex by one of Bofill’s students, as evidence of its enduring heritage.

In 2006, the Socialist-run municipality proposed demolishing the complex, a plan residents and locals rejected. It was withdrawn in 2015 after a right-wing mayor took office.

Newly elected officials approved the filming of The Hunger Games to attract funding – for the films, it was used as a battlefield arena – and the building’s cinematic potential was credited with saving them from demolition.

For decades, artists have used and interpreted the space in various ways, particularly the central plaza surrounded by the Theatre, Palacio and Arch.

“Understand it as a space allowing for creative acts,” said Bitsindou.

Director Terry Gilliam shot a car-chase scene for Brazil (1985) there, highlighting the underworld with dark corridors and emphasising a vertical society of light and shadow.

Performers have also used it as a stage. Rosé filmed her dance performance for ‘Number One Girl’ in the plaza last February, while French singers Slimane and Léa Castel filmed ‘����î��é��’ there eight years earlier.

Espaces d’Abraxas has recently opened for guided tours, and a book on the complex is underway.

Bitsindou is hopeful the renovation will allow Espaces d’Abraxas to reclaim its place in history. Societal changes, including the rise of remote working, may finally suit Bofill’s vision of social mixing.

She checks Leboncoin regularly, hoping one day to live there. She is also working on a project to open a museum focused on Bofill and Espaces d’Abraxas.