Les Choux de Créteil (“The Cabbages of Créteil”) is a grouping of fifteen of housing towers in the Paris suburb of Créteil. The buildings, designed by architect Gérard Grandval, were completed in 1974, and remain fully occupied. In recent years, approximately 25% of the project’s overall rooms have been reallocated as student housing.

While the buildings’ distinctive leaf-like balconies are the source of their curious name, the overall complex has a broadly organic feel as well, with plentiful green spaces criss-crossed by meandering footpaths. Numerous cherry trees have been planted in the area, which explode into pink flowers every spring.

Other modernist buildings of a more standard angularity are dropped in among the rounded towers, including other housing blocks, a symmetrical ziggurat-like administrative building, and a combination theater/shopping center.

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