Oscar Niemeyer – a Super-Grasse which never was

High above Grasse on the route Napoleon you can see the remarkable, if rather isolated, sight of a soaring 1960s diving platform sitting above a near-Olympic sized 50m outdoor pool.

It’s called Altitude 500 and it’s currently closed until 2026 for a complete refurbishment.

A little further west, and accessible from a road to Cabris which leaves the route Napoleon about 400 metres before Altitude 500, there’s the relatively new Roquevignon departmental natural park, with walks and a fitness area. In between, there’s an isolated research station owned by ACRI-ST, a satellite observation company (the road to it is appropriately called Nicolas Copernicus)......and very little else, as a view from the Aire du Chene de l'Empereur on the Route Napoleon above the area shows:

But if one of the twentieth century’s most famous architects, Oscar Niemeyer (best known for designing Brasilia) had had his way, the scene today would have been very different.

The Altitude 500 pool complex, and the Espace Culturel alongside it, are on the far eastern side of a site for which Niemeyer conceived a model new town, Super-Grasse. It was to be in a ‘ZUP’ (“zone à urbaniser en priorité”), a Government programme which ran from 1959 until 1967 to create new housing developments from scratch on virgin sites. The aim was to address a major housing shortage, which in southern France was exacerbated by the influx of “pied-noirs” refugees from Algeria. The Roquevignon ZUP was created in 1962.

Oscar Niemeyer came to France as an exile from Brazil in 1965: his active left-wing views were distinctly unwelcome to Brazil's military regime of the time. His Super-Grasse design for a town of the future would have accommodated 2,000 homes, with a central square, a church, shops, schools, creches, a cinema, a youth centre and even a football stadium alongside other sporting facilities. It was also to be car-free – a quite radical concept in the sixties – and there was to be a rack railway to connect Super-Grasse to Grasse itself. The whole area was to be something like this:

Niemeyer’s stated objective was to create an environment on a human and intimate scale, both physically and spiritually.

But he seems to have suffered from the same malaise as most sixties architects (including, of course, in the UK and USA): for his apartments, he designed upwards, with three soaring sixteen storey buildings. Since his site was much less space-constrained than many, one assumes that his motivation was to remove the need for car traffic within the new town.

The project was abandoned in 1972 due to lack of money (or maybe for other reasons: it’s not quite clear). Only the Altitude 500 swimming pool and the youth centre (now the cultural centre) were actually built, but to designs by another architect, Léon Loschetter. This postcard from 1982 shows the pool in its heyday.

Judging by the current status of some other ZUPs (for example the Moulins quarter in Nice or Le Canet-Malpassé in Marseilles, both with notorious social problems), Grasse may have had a narrow escape, although perhaps Oscar Niemeyer’s emphasis on a human-scale design and Super-Grasse’s situation on this extraordinary site above the town might have worked better.

Many of Oscar Niemeyer’s drawings for Super-Grasse still exist and are kept in the town archives (Archives Communal de Grasse), but some drawings made their way to, of all places, the Museum of Modern Art (MomA) in New York. One can currently be seen here.

Altitude 500 is to be restructured, and asbestos removal is taking place as the first phase.

A project due to finish in 2026 will include the 50-metre pool a 25-metre indoor pool, an early childhood pool and an outdoor play area, with a new building for reception, changing rooms and administration. The panoramic terrace will have a catering area and outdoor beaches. It will be used by all the local schools and open to the general public.

The old diving board will go, however, condemned today, no doubt, for reasons of safety. Today's version of the young men in the 1982 photo clustered on and around the diving board will have to find somewhere else for their thrills. The intention is apparently to use the structure to display a large 'Altitude 500' sign, so at least it will survive.

Grasse is quite conscious of the lost legacy of Oscar Niemeyer – see for example, the Kiosque magazine of 2017 here – and no doubt when Altitude 500 is re-opened it will remember him again. But maybe his vision in this case went a little too far?