The Bordeaux stall
As everywhere, the typological diversity of the houses is mainly linked to their history, agriculture and the social level of the inhabitants. In Gironde, the "maison de maître", with its stone walls, its orderly facade and its 2 or 4-sided roof, is also called the "Girondine" house. Not to be confused with the "échoppe"! Succeeding the wooden stalls of the craftsmen and merchants at the dawn of the industrial revolution, the traditional stone stalls of Bordeaux became social housing with a garden, reserved for the working class population. The limestone of Frontenac and Bourg gave Bordeaux its blond color. In favor of the Tourny facades, the last shops were built in 1939. Lined up one after the other along the street, they remain today a very popular city habitat.
Soulac, the town of 500 villas
From the second half of the 19thcentury onwards, Soulac, which came to be known as the "Town of 500 Villas", became a fashionable seaside resort. In Soulac, the desilting of the Notre-Dame-de-la-fin-des-Terres basilica, listed by UNESCO on July 20, 1891, was a major factor in the town's development as a garden city. As limestone was scarce in the Médoc, locally-produced brick was quickly adopted for the construction of these highly ornamented villas, flanked by gables, galleries and verandas. Typical of this seaside architecture, the "soulacaise" style comes in shades of white and orange-red, set off by the green of the vegetation.
The pearls of the Arcachon basin
Unquestionable landscape value of the Arcachon basin, most of them registered in the inventory of classified sites, the oyster farming villages with their 500 huts in tight rows make the history, the decoration and the charm. In the 19th century, to avoid the plundering of their concessions located north of the Ile aux Oiseaux, the oyster farmers, mainly from Gujan-Mestras and La Teste, built huts or settled in old beached boats. This is how the villages of Jacquets, Canon, Piraillan or Herbe in Cap Ferret were born. Lined up 2 meters apart, the oyster huts are traditionally built with wood from the forest of La Teste.
The Arcachonians of the Winter City
High resort place of the bourgeoisie of the IIIrd Republic, Arcachon was first a very popular spa resort. In order to make the arrival of the railway line profitable in 1857, Émile Pereire, cousin of Doctor Pereira and close to Napoleon III, launched the Winter City real estate program to house the sick, their families and their servants. In charge of the general plan, the architect Paul Regnault was to work with the young Gustave Eiffel. Protected as a listed site on September 18, 1985, the Winter City is a true paradise of architecture and fantasy. Neo-classical, neo-Gothic, Moorish or inspired by the Swiss chalet or the colonial house, the Arcachon villas of the 1870s-1900s tend to play the monumental card. More ostentatious than the others, their silhouettes are characterized by asymmetry and verticality.
Art Nouveau or Art Deco?
An artistic movement of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, based on the aesthetics of curved lines, Art Nouveau did not develop much in Gironde. Inspired by Cubism, and in reaction to Art Nouveau, the Art Deco movement of the Roaring Twenties focused more on facade decoration. In Bordeaux, the area around Parc Lescure is the most homogeneous and representative of the Art Deco style.
Le Corbusier in Gironde
On July 17, 2016, the architectural work of Charles-Edouard Jeanneret-Gris, known as Le Corbusier (1887-1965), was inscribed by Unesco on the World Heritage List as an "exceptional contribution to the Modern movement". The Gironde region boasts two buildings by the famous architect and town planner. In 1923, industrialist Henri Frugès, who owned a sugar refinery in Bordeaux and a sawmill in Lège-Cap-Ferret, commissioned Corbusier to build a workers' housing estate for his staff. Adopting the free-form plan and the long window, two fundamentals dear to the architect's heart, Le Corbusier built a group of six houses in Lège. The simple massing, white walls and flat roofs give each block a Mediterranean feel, earning the housing estate the name "Moroccan Quarter". Sketched out in Lège as a garden city, the "Quartiers Modernes Frugès" program in Pessac is guided by the principles of industrial construction. The Cité Frugès comprises 51 houses.
La Girolle, nature holiday residence
A signature of the Bordeaux-based architectural team Salier-Courtois-Lajus-Sadirac, the Girolle was built in the mid-1960s, a period that saw a new boom in second homes on the coast and in the Arcachon basin. In synergy with nature, this prefabricated wood-frame house is a delight for clients with modest budgets. Open to the outside world, the house was designed as a second home, but is now being developed as a main residence. Although the Girolle concept was criticized for its poor insulation in 1974, at the time of the first energy crisis, it has endured to the present day.
The Landes landscape in Gironde
The Landes forest (called Landes de Gascogne and formerly Landes de Bordeaux) covering part of the territory, the rural house of South Gironde is called "maison landaise". Typically Landes, the airial - a lawn covered area planted with a few oaks or umbrella pines - bears witness to an ancient life that has now disappeared. Like a clearing in the forest, the airial is a small estate which gathers a group of buildings formerly used for agricultural activity. The master house is large and has the best location. Supported by one or two high posts, the roof overhang in the form of an awning is one of the hallmarks of the Landes house. One can be surprised along the roads... Also, by the "West Indian houses" that have flourished along the coast. Decorative fantasy or heritage of the past, they would testify to the colonization of the Landes in the middle of the 19th century and are characterized by awnings supported by cast iron pillars.
