In Royan, fifties architecture is back in favor

"It took time to look at this architecture differently. For decades, we only saw concrete, so 'it was ugly,'" says Charlotte de Charette, head of the town's Heritage Department.

After the Allied bombings of 1945, the Pearl of the Atlantic and its Belle Époque villas were a wasteland. The seaside resort had to be rebuilt using neoclassical architecture inherited from the 1930s, blended with regionalist elements.

But the reading of a specialist journal by the chief architect-urban planner Claude Ferret and his team changed the situation: they discovered the Pampulha complex in Brazil, designed for the city of Belo Horizonte by Oscar Niemeyer, whose tropical modernism would clearly influence their work.

"The reconstruction of Royan has been enriched with a lyrical and joyful vocabulary, the opposite of the rigorous lines of Le Corbusier, who himself inspired Niemeyer," comments Vincent Bertaud du Chazaud, former consulting architect for the city and author of several books. "Tropicalism is translated here into heliotropism, with an architecture that embraces the sun and tempers its ardor."

Screens, awnings, sunshades, shutters, and pergolas promote the play of light and shadow. Pilings, portholes, spiral staircases, the use of bright colors, and other inventive details create effects on facades.

Awareness

The fact remains that this architecture has long been disliked. "For residents, it was difficult to imagine themselves in a city that was so new, so innovative, and so non-bourgeois," explains Pascale Francisco, director of the Council for Architecture, Urban Planning and the Environment (CAUE) in Charente-Maritime.

Claude Ferret replied that he "wasn't building Royan for them, but for their children." But no one was moved in 1985 when his casino, a masterpiece of the fifties, was demolished to make way for a real estate project... which never came to fruition. "Like at the show, we watched the crane wipe the slate clean" of the past, recalls Nadine David, Deputy Minister for Culture.

This destruction, however, led to an awareness of the value of this heritage, which led to the protection of the Notre-Dame church in particular, a raw concrete building listed as a Historic Monument in 1988.

In 1996, a Zone for the Protection of Urban and Landscape Architectural Heritage (ZPPAUP) was created, transformed into a Remarkable Heritage Site (SPR) twenty years later, and the municipality obtained the Town of Art and History label in 2011.

Proud of its identity, Royan now fully claims its heritage.

She has renovated several iconic buildings, including her "concrete cathedral," so nicknamed by André Malraux, which suffered from carbonation of its raw concrete: the salt from the sea sand used to build it caused the metal frames to rust and the stone to crack. The convention center has also already undergone renovation, and the seafront is currently undergoing renovation.

Unique

"These architects, close to the Beaux-Arts, had great freedom and moved quickly. It would be complicated today, particularly for insurance reasons," says architect Jérémy Nadau, who was tasked with restoring the city market to its former glory and brightness.

For Sandu Hangan, chief architect of the Bâtiments de France in the department, this work of promotion has allowed residents "to realize the unique character of their heritage."

While homeowners are often looking for better energy performance or improved layout, the times are over. "We no longer have much trouble making the case for the benefits of these buildings," says the administrative manager.

Faced with the arrival of new residents, their preservation remains a "constant battle," Pascale Francisco says.

"We need to constantly raise awareness, explain why we need to renovate the gate, the railings, the 1950s gate with a craftsman, rather than installing the PVC model from a DIY store. The city is not standard, the idea is to keep it that way," emphasizes the director of CAUE 17... admitting that it is also "a matter of taste."