Meccano: the building game, the architecture of commerce

Abstract

Between 1968 and 1970 Georges Candilis worked on a project for the construction of two shopping centres in the Le Barcarès-Leucate tourist train station located on the Languedoc-Roussillon region of the French coast. This article studies the project as an exemplary intervention in terms of the construction being inserted as a stem in the urban storyline, the organisation of the commercial programme in a mat-building style, and the diverse applications of the meccano construction set. This article analyses, through architectural writings, the character in which consumer society lends itself to the commercial architecture, which itself is finally turned into a consumer object.

Keywords

• Georges Candilis
• Le Barcarès-Leucate
• shopping centre
• meccano
• stem
• mat-building