From villas to eccentric architecture
Born at the end of the 19th century, the seaside architecture offers a remarkable range of astonishing villas through which architects had the freedom to express themselves. There are many borrowed designs and pastiches. Some took their inspiration from regional characteristics, others from English cottages and others still from exotic oriental forms. There was only one rule: be the most original!
Turrets, small steeples, belvederes and campaniles are on display on the beach front or in the park district where Émile Zola, Sacha Guitry and Yvonne Printemps used to come every year. The photographer Jacques-Henri Lartigue left an unforgettable account of their shared holidays. The carefree roaring twenties! Time has bestowed a crazy charm upon them.
The architectural eccentricity of these villas continued on into the 50’s on the seafront, in the Park district and near the Congress Centre.
The perspective game
After the 1945 bombings, the urban infrastructure was entirely rethought, aerated and underscored by a greater perspective. You cannot leave Royan, this living museum of 1950’s architecture and urbanism, without entering into the seafront portico and visiting the “prow of the city” conceived by Guillaume Gillet: the Notre-Dame church, the fine concrete veil that covers the nave is of an undeniable technical and aesthetical prowess.
The sobriety and asceticism impregnate the protestant centre, its parvis and its church. With its parachute-like appearance, the covered market - a shell made up of a concrete net resting on thirteen supports - completes the perspective of the estuary.
This technical experimentation also found success in the construction of the Congress Centre with its subtle game of light between convex surfaces and vertical and horizontal planes.
