Lorient - Art and History tour

At the entrance to the port, the French East India Company auction room sold the precious cargoes brought back from India and Asia. Both wings were to have surrounded a huge central building that was never in fact built. Constructed in 1740, this majestic stone and slate building was part of the restauration of the port designed by the architect Jacques V Gabriel whose name it now bears.  The quadrangle to the north and the French gardens to the south frame the building which shows off the power and wealth of the French East India Company in the 18th century. Hotel Gabriel houses the municipal archives and the Lorient architecture and heritage department.

A watchtower rebuilt in 1786 after suffering several lightning strikes, this tower is one of the rare buildings of the French East India Company to have survived the bombardments of the Second World War. Thirty-eight metres high, it was used to watch for the return of ships to port and monitor for smuggling activity along the coast of the island of Groix.

The mills set up by the French East India Company on Le Faouëdic hill in the 17th and 18th centuries were used to mill flour for the port bakery that made “marine bread” or “sea biscuits” for consumption on board the ships. In the 19th century, one of them was converted into a marine observatory. It is pierced by a tall, high window to enable watchers to scan the night sky and adjust the precision mechanics of the navigation instruments.

A low wall punctuated by windows and a planted embankment are all that is left of a huge water reservoir built by the French Navy in 1875. It contained more than 3,000 cubic metres of drinking water to supply the armoury’s barracks. The vaults of the reservoir are supported on 16 high pillars and show an early use of concrete. Sloping down towards the river Scorff, the lime kiln ramp owes its name to the lime kilns built below the reservoir in the 18th century. It still has the old paving stones and supporting walls.

In the 18th century, this house contained the French East India Company’s printing press which published the sales catalogues and sales information documents. This is the only remains of the “Peristyle”, a vast architectural ensemble used to store goods.

This zone housed the warehouses of the French East India Company, used to store goods brought back from India until they were sold. Built in the 18th century and designed by Jacques V Gabriel, in the 19th century they became a barracks and training facility before being bombarded in 1943. The colonnades or “péristyle” that opened the building onto the river Scorff gave its name to the quays and the promenade along the port. Today the Lorient Agglomeration offices, designed by the architect Jean de Giacinto can be found here.

In the 1760s, the municipality started restoring the banks of the Le Faouëdic river, now the marina. Private houses were built along the quays. The owners, mainly merchants, were obliged to respect the facades designed by the engineer Détaille de Kerorgan. Built of stone, rubble and slate, these buildings were double-glazed to protect against the bad weather. One of the wrought iron balconies has a rebus puzzle meaning “half-ground, half-mud”, a reminder that this land was reclaimed from mudflats.

Created in 1807, the Lorient Chamber of Commerce promotes local economic development. The first stone of the building on the quai des Indes, designed by the architects, Dutartre, Caro-Picard and Ramonatxo, was laid in 1927. The monumental Art Deco facade rigorously and symmetrically organised, the noble local limestone and the pediment with its ornate caduceus (the emblem of Hermes, god of commerce) are all architectural features that confirm the Chamber of Commerce’s prestige.

At the start of the 19th century, when the former French East India Company port closed to trade and became exclusively military, a new port with a wet dock, navigational lock and pre-port was built on the bed of Le Faouëdic. The construction was long and laborious; the work started in 1838 and the commercial port was only inaugurated in 1870. At the site of the current lift bridge, surrounded by two lock houses, was a rotating bridge manoeuvred by means of a capstan winch, still there today.

This wide pedestrian street planted with magnolias and palm trees forms a link between the district of Nouvelle Ville and the quays. It sets off the République building, a large 1960s building redesigned by Roland Castro and Sophie Denissof from 1999 to 2003.

Following the work to renovate the social housing and repurpose the quai des Indes and the quai de Rohon, in 1994, a pedestrian walkway was arranged along the quai Eric Tabarly and the pier where in the 19th century, the huge sardine fishing fleet unloaded. The promenade provides access to the sea terminal serving the island of Groix. At the end of the pier is the lighthouse that marked the entrance to the pre-port and which has been transformed into a lookout area on the bay.

The architects who redesigned the République building, also renovated the three huge social housing buildings built thirty years earlier by Georges Tourry. Completed in 1996, the project aimed at providing quality social housing to keep the inhabitants in the town. The buildings were shortened, and bow-windows and terraces added to the white facades with metal grids. To open up the district and the town to the port, the longest building, quai Jean Bart, was pierced through the centre for a new road. Completely renovated in 2011, the square Brizeux provides a green space with a picnic area and a children’s playground.

This large open space in the centre of the town was originally known as the place Jules Ferry which was formed from part of the marina in 1901 and after the war. A set of commercial barracks existed on the esplanade until 1958. In 1968, the construction of the Palais des Congrès completed the square and the esplanade gave way to a park.

A metal and concrete ring built in 1964, the Merville market is a focal point between the Dupuy-de-Lôme lycée, the administrative buildings and the districts of Merville and Nouvelle Ville. Innovative in its shape and structure, the architect Félix le Saint created a light, airy space that almost seems to float in the air. The external wall is decorated with a sea-themed mosaic designed and installed in 1986 by the ceramist Jean-Claude Goualc'h.

Just after the Second World War, Georges Tourry took inspiration from American campuses to design the Dupuy-de-Lôme secondary school. The buildings each have a specific purpose and are arranged independently in a vast park. Since 2005, the establishment has been going through restructuration.

Designed by the architect Henri Gaudin, the Grand Théâtre opened in 2003 with seating for 1,000 spectators. In dialogue with the town hall, the theatre building is a series of complex shapes and volumes, evoking the maritime world (waves, boat hulls, fins, sails, etc.). This contemporary architecture prolongs the town’s central axis which extends as far as the marina and the Péristyle. Between the Grand Théâtre and the Aquatic Centre stands the flower-fountain, designed by the Danish architect Jeppe Hein.  The work invites passers-by to walk into the jets of water, which represent the stamens of a huge flower and spout at random intervals. Further up, the southern stand of the Moustoir stadium, built in 2010, closes the perspective.

When it was rebuilt, the town hall was not originally here, but like other public buildings was around the park Jules Ferry to free up the old town centre. The monumental granite facade is held up by a series of columns. On the upper floor, punctuated by large vertical windows, are huge rooms, possible by using reinforced concrete. The bronze bas-relief shows the birth of Lorient, a town born from the sea. The administrative departments are housed in the building on boulevard du Général Leclerc. Planned in 1950, the building was only inaugurated in 1960.

Originally circular, this square marked the beginning of the rue du Port to the porte de Ploemeur. On one side it boasts a row of coloured buildings, built in the 1930s on land freed up after demolition of the ramparts. The space became rectangular on reconstruction and served as the entrance to the town centre, shown by the monumental facade of the Royal cinema (currently the FNAC).

Inaugurated in 1954, the Bisson school was one of the first reconstruction projects in Lorient. The three buildings, only two of which survive, are clearly modernist. Facing due south to get as much light as possible into the classrooms, they are aligned with the road and open onto huge yards. Gone were the days of dark, closed classrooms! Connecting the junior school to the former girls’ school, the partly glassed-in yard has a mosaic illustrating Fontaine’s fables, made by the company Andreatta.

Nicknamed the marrow bone in French because of its Y-shaped layout, this building was built in 1955 in the centre of an island belonging to the French Navy. The facade open on the square is divided by the two glassed-in staircases. Built with prefabricated elements (concrete slabs, rails, etc.), this building is an example of the arrival of comfortable apartments. They had washrooms with basins and dryers, consigning the public washhouse to the past.

A royal square providing structure to the fortified 18th century town, this huge square is a symbolic space in the reconstruction of Lorient. The architect Jean-Baptiste Hourlier worked on it from 1947. The ground floor shop buildings surrounding the square display are uniform in architecture and materials. Behind this classical appearance however, with the use of stone and slate roofs, the square is quite modern, especially in its method of construction. Prefabricated stone plaques were inserted using a crane into a concrete framework: a technique that met the urgent need for reconstruction. On the ground, the grids of paving and slabs was designed to create a forecourt in front of the church putting it into perspective, with parking originally limited to the side areas under the trees.

Before the Second World War the church of Saint-Louis was located at the top of the cours de la Bôve and being bombed in 1943 was rebuilt at one of the corners of the place Alsace-Lorraine. It was consecrated in 1955 as Notre-Dame-de-Victoire. Designed by Jean-Baptiste Hourlier, the building adopts the granite and the height of the other buildings on the square. After the monumental entrance, the contrast with the rigour of the outside is surprising. The space is bathed in light, the eyes drawn along the high concrete pillars, up to the dome where the star-shaped imprint of the wooden frame can be seen. Jean-Baptiste Hourlier and his artists played with sober materials: fonts in enamelled concrete, teak fittings, frescoes, marble floors, blocks of coloured glass and bare concrete, all come into their own.

During the Second World War, a 400-place shelter was set up under the place Alsace-Lorraine to protect the population the bombing. Surviving mostly intact, today it serves as a memorial to the destroyed town.

The historical axis of the town, from which the watchtower can be seen, this street led to the entrance of the French East India Company port. Lorient grew up along this central route which became its commercial artery. The street illustrates the variety of architecture used in the reconstruction: flat or peaked roofs, window frames, washing dryer screens, etc. The building in the place Paul Bert and the corner of the rue de la Patrie are interesting in the treatment of their balconies. In the 1990s, the rue du Port now pedestrianised, was embellished with plantations and street furniture.

In 1775, the Intendant of Brittany, Caze de la Bôves converted an old square into a planted promenade with a fountain. It stretches from the church of Saint-Louis (gone today and replaced by the residence Plein Ciel) to the quai des Indes. These architectural features appeared at the same time as a new population in Lorient, the merchant bourgeoisie. The construction of an Italianate theatre at the end of the promenade marked the apogee of their influence on public life. The carved stone building from the end of the 19th century at the corner of the cours de la Bôve and the rue du Port has all the characteristics of the Haussmann style used in Paris in the 1850-1860s, with three storeys of decreasing height.

Designed in 1953, the “Banana” ensemble is built on the site of the town’s oldest district, which over time had become overpopulated and dirty. The reconstruction architects built an open island, allowing air and light through, comprised of several elements in a park; a curved bar, small buildings and as a counterpoint, a 14-storey tower.