LES CARYATIDES DE GUYANCOURT BY Manuel Núñez Yanowsky
Just southwest of Paris, at the intersection of Andrea Palladio and Frank Lloyd Wright streets in the suburb of Guyancourt, 18 colossal female figures stand together to support one of the most surreal manifestations of postmodernist architecture.
Together, the monumental replicas of the Venus de Milo compose Les Caryatides, two identical apartment blocks standing across from each other, performing their own kind of concrete theater in full view of the public. The project was designed in 1992 by architect Manuel Núñez Yanowsky, who was one of the original team members of Ricardo Bofill’s Taller de Arquitectura in early 1960s Barcelona, and went on to develop several important works, including the iconic Arènes de Picasso in Noisy-le-Grand on the outskirts of Paris. More than three decades after its construction, Les Caryatides de Guyancourt remains legendary to some, absurd to others, but undeniably unforgettable. For its admirers, the project rethinks classical forms and motifs. For its critics, it’s kitsch masquerading as grandeur, a surreal eyesore amid the suburban landscape. As with much of Yanowsky’s work, this project demands attention.
The architect himself calls the building Venus 18, a title that deepens the intrigue. In an Instagram post, he plays with mystery, asking, ‘Is it because she’s 18 years old? Because she’s 2 meters and 18 centimeters tall? Or because she has 17 friends just like her?’ As big fans of the work, designboom paid a visit to Les Caryatides in Guyancourt to explore the building in person and unveil its beauty and peculiarities in the following photographic essay.
all images © designboom
venus de milo as structural element
Spanish-born architect Manuel Núñez Yanowsky’s apartment dwellings are instantly recognizable for their oversized take on classical sculpture. Equal parts theatrical and ironic, the structures critique the enduring performative power of architecture.
The rigid, modular facades of the buildings, punctuated by square windows and recessed panels, rest atop colonnades of towering sculptures, monumental replicas of the Venus de Milo, that icon of broken-limbed antiquity. Each Venus is rendered at an exaggerated scale, perched atop oversized plinths that elevate them from art object to architectural load-bearer. They hold the residential superstructures like postmodern Atlases, serene, idealized, and surreal in context. The figures face outward, indifferent to the weight above or the traffic below, wrapped in flowing drapery that echoes their classical origins. Their missing arms, a signature of the original sculpture, are left uncorrected, heightening the sense of theatrical irony.
18 massive female figures stand together
France’s grands ensembles and villes nouvelles
Set within the Villaroy district of Guyancourt, Venus 18 occupies a unique place in the timeline of French urbanism. The project forms part of the new town of Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines, one of the post-war initiative ‘villes nouvelles’ developed around Paris from the 1970s onward. These satellite cities were conceived to decentralize the capital, manage population growth, and correct the failings of the earlier ‘grands ensembles’ housing boom.
While Les Caryatides emerge from the same lineage, they mark a definitive stylistic and conceptual departure. Unlike the austere, repetitive blocks typical of the grands ensembles era, Yanowsky’s design embraces ornament, irony, and historical reference, reimagining the caryatid, borrowed from ancient Greek architecture, as a postmodern load-bearing icon.
With just 110 apartments, the scale of Les Caryatides is more intimate than its mid-century predecessors, yet its ambition is no less radical. The project reflects the goals of the villes nouvelles: to humanize suburban life, inject architectural diversity, and create urban environments rich in meaning and memory. Set within this context, Les Caryatides questions the assumptions underlying post-war housing. These were never meant to be faceless dormitory suburbs; they were envisioned as vibrant urban futures. Yanowsky’s intervention revives that ambition. Why shouldn’t social housing be monumental? Why can’t everyday architecture embrace theatricality? These provocations are etched into the very fabric of the building.
Venus 18 was designed by Manuel Núñez Yanowsky in 1992
monumental housing before les caryatides
Les Caryatides isn’t Yanowsky’s only foray into urban mythology. Just a few years earlier, he completed another monumental housing complex outside Paris: Les Arènes de Picasso in Noisy-le-Grand (1980–1984). Nicknamed le Camembert by locals, supposedly because Yanowsky showed Jean Nouvel a round of the famous cheese during a site visit, the building is made up of 540 social housing units clad in boldly patterned, precast concrete. The elevation panels were designed to override the regular grid with a strong visual identity, a tactic Yanowsky used to mask repetition with theatricality. The structure’s circular form and sculptural flourishes seem almost extraterrestrial. In a tongue-in-cheek anecdote relayed by critic Philip Jodidio, Yanowsky joked that the rotating disc of the central structure tilts 15° every morning at 7:00 a.m., launching residents from their beds to the toilet, then to the kitchen, and finally into their cars on the way to work. It’s a myth, of course, but like much of his architecture, it blurs the line between satire and speculation.