Postman Cheval's ideal Palace, "saved" by Malraux 50 years ago

André Malraux, then Minister of Culture, had to fight to obtain on September 23, 1969 the classification of this masterpiece of naive architecture against the advice of most experts who considered the Palace "hideous" and hardly hid their contempt for its creator.

In addition to sanctuarize this unique work in the world, admired by the Surrealists, "the tenacity of Malraux saved the Palace from ruin", assures Frédéric Legros, its director since last May.

"From a dream, I have brought the queen out of the world," wrote Ferdinand Cheval on the north facade, whose construction of stones, gathered during his tours, of shells and lime modeled by hand, could have disappeared.

The metal structures used by the postman to consolidate his building, 12 meters high and 26 meters long, were eaten away by rust and threatened to collapse.

"He was also a communications genius who had opened the palace to the public in 1905," said Legros to AFP. If visitors then called him "enlightened", they hurried to Hauterives.

Started in 1879, the construction of this marriage of dream figures, cultures and religions of East and West, will be completed in 1912.

Ferdinand Cheval will spend another seven years building his own tomb in the neighboring cemetery. "His masterpiece", according to the director.

A bit megalomaniac, he wanted to build in his Palace a burial "worthy of the pharaohs". The church and the town hall refused.

The name "Ideal Palace" is borrowed from a poem by a young Grenoblois enthusiastic about his visit.

Today, the site attracts some 180.000 visitors per year, French and foreign, "a number reached as of July 31 this year", says Frédéric Legros. Attendance boosted by the success of biopic by director Niels Tavernier, released in 2018.

"And, no, corrects Mr. Legros, the postman Cheval had not built the Palace for his daughter Alice, who died a teenager, as the film claims. And suddenly, part of the audience believes".

"One man work"

This monument where a mosque, a Hindu temple, a medieval castle, Vercingetorix, Caesar and Archimedes, animal figures or sculptures "from primitive times" coexist, has been owned by the municipality since 1994.

It has since been restored several times, concrete injected under its base ...

Ferdinand Cheval (1836-1924) was first a baker. "It gave him an incredible dexterity to + knead + lime," notes Legros.

His idea of ​​"temple of nature" springs up when he stumbles on a bizarre-shaped stone. He baptized it "stumbling block" and placed it on the terrace of the Palace, which also included "caves" and interior galleries.

This man, who claimed to be a "peasant, peasant's son", had never seen an elephant or a cheetah, much less oriental temples. He reinvents them from postcards or illustrated magazines. And, to educate the visitor, engrave legends under the sculptures.

The postman also writes his thoughts on the façades: "Obstinately the dream", "A beneficent genius pulled me out of thin air", "Work of one man" ...

On the occasion of the 50th anniversary, an unpublished notebook of drawings by Picasso, a tribute to the factor Cheval dated 1937, will be presented to the public for the first time from Friday, during the Heritage Days. Picasso had visited the Palace with Dora Maar and Paul Eluard.

The postman's house, Villa Alicius, open for the first time to visitors, will host the exhibition "The wind and the birds encourage me", with works by Ali Cherri, who also exhibits in the garden his "Flying Machine ", a feather painting by Kate MccGwire or photos of birds by Jean-Luc Mylayne.

The "Cage mangeable", a work by Fabrice Hyber, will also be exhibited.

And all year long, there will be successive exhibitions of great figures of modern art such as Picasso and contemporary artists.