Royan Architecture Month showcases French modernism by the sea

Every year in April, Royan Architecture Month celebrates 'The Most 1950s City in France'. For the 2024 festival, some 2,000 visitors are expected to visit Royan's rich modernist heritage during the event's 12th edition. The programme will focus on the city’s preserved, post-war, modernist architecture monuments, including the Notre Dame church and the Palais des Congrès, as well as current restoration projects in the midcentury realm, such as its clam-shaped central market, the Jules Ferry school, and the creation of the Municipal Technical Centre.

Royan Architecture Month

A key addition to this year’s festival is the offering of guided tours of the Palais des Congrès, which unveiled its makeover in June 2023. The restoration took three years, 25 regional companies, and was led by Claude Ferret, the son of the original architect and father of modernist Royan, Pierre Ferret. Its playful, perforated façade remains intact with Jean Prouvé-designed panels in Vermeer grey and yellow.

Another focal point is a series of organised visits to the Royan market, led by its restoration architects, Benoît Meriac and Carole Le Maréchal of Nadau Architecture. 'The Royan market is a shell, its shopping life and its local products are its pearl,' says Royan’s heritage foundation on a website that has raised €92,000 of the €100,000 goal to restore what they also call the nerve centre of their walkable city. Inspired by Oscar Niemeyer's architecture, the market was built in 1956.

Participants in the events include Caroline Mazel and Gilles Ragot, both Bordeaux-based architecture teachers, and Richard Klein, the president of the modernist preservation non-profit Docomomo. Lectures touch upon topics such as the Australian architect and 2002 Pritzker Prize winner Glenn Murcutt; how Royan’s architecture differs from greater France; and how the city offers a unique variation of Le Corbusier’s architecture definition, 'the learned, correct, and magnificent play of volumes assembled in light'.

'We are working with the mayor and banding with other mid-sized European coastal cities with modernist collections to raise awareness and protect our buildings,' said Royan deputy mayor Nadine David, who oversees cultural heritage.

Such preservation efforts and focused attention also work towards healing a collective wound: bombs destroyed 85 per cent of Royan in the Second World War. Tasked with the reconstruction, Bordeaux-based architect Claude Ferret led the charge to turn the city into a seaside resort with white concrete, curved structures, and a primary colour palette. 

Oscar Niemeyer’s Pampulha resort particularly inspired him. Ferret’s work marked the start of Royan’s renaissance as a modernist coastal gem. Almost 75 years later, cue the city’s second comeback.

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