Lorient - The green belt circuit

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Designed in 1953, the so-called «de la Banane» complex is built on the site of the oldest district of the city, which has become overcrowded and unhealthy over time. The architects of the reconstruction install an open island, letting air circulate and light penetrate, composed of several elements placed on a green space: a curved bar, small buildings and, in contrast, a tower of 14 floors.

In 1775, the intendant of Brittany Caze de la Bôve redeveloped an old square planted promenade embellished with a fountain. It stretches from the church of Saint-Louis (now disappeared and materialized by the residence Plein Ciel) to the quai des Indes. These developments are contemporary with the appearance of a new population in Lorient: the trading bourgeoisie. The construction of an Italian theatre at the bottom of the course marks the height of their influence on public life. The building, built in the late 19th century in block stone at the corner of the Cours de la Bôve and the rue du port, has all the characteristics of the Haussmann style implemented in Paris in the years 1850-1860 and three levels of decreasing height.

Historic axis of the city, from which we can see the Discovery Tower, the street led to the entrance of the port of the Compagnie des Indes. Lorient has developed along this road that has become a commercial artery. The street illustrates the variety of architectural choices made during the reconstruction: flat or two-sided roofs, window frames, closets for clothes dryers ... The buildings at Place Paul Bert and the corner of rue de la Patrie attract attention by their balcony treatment. In the 1990s, the street of the port, now a pedestrian area, was embellished with plantations and urban furniture.

Royal square structuring the fortified city of the 18th century, this vast quadrilateral is an emblematic space of the early reconstruction of Lorient. The architect Jean-Baptiste Hourlier works there from 1947. The commercial ground-floor buildings surrounding the square display a unity of material and architecture. But behind this classic appearance, marked by the use of stone and slate roofs, the square reveals a great modernity in particular in its construction. Stone-clad elements, prefabricated in the factory, are inserted with a crane into a concrete frame: a technique that allows to respond to the urgency of reconstruction. On the ground, the grid of slabs and cobblestones was designed to create a forecourt in front of the church and put it in perspective, with parking originally confined to the lateral spaces under the rows of trees.

During the Second World War, a 400-seat shelter was built under the Place Alsace-lorraine to protect the population from bombardments. Largely preserved in its original state, it is now a place of memory of the destroyed city.

Located before the Second World War at the top of the course of the Bôve, the church of Saint-Louis, bombed in 1943, is rebuilt at one of the corners of the Place Alsace-Lorraine. It was consecrated in 1955 under the title of Notre-Dame-de-Vice. The building was designed by Jean-Baptiste Hourlier and adopts the granite cladding and height of the buildings in the square. Past the monumental entrance portico, the contrast with the rigor of the exterior is striking. The space is bathed in light, the gaze runs along the high concrete pillars to rise up to the dome where appears in star the imprint of the wooden formwork. Jean-Baptiste Hourlier and the artists around him, play with sobriety on materials: concrete glazed beatitudes, teak wood panelling, frescoes, marble flooring, colored glass blocks and raw concrete, whose nobility is fully claimed here.

On this site in 1731, Claire Droneau set up the Maison de Miséricorde. This hospice for Lorient civilians was donated to the town in 1740 and became the Hôtel-Dieu (hospital) of Lorient. In 1782, a new chapel was built of which the neoclassical facade remains with a monumental door topped with a large oculus and a pediment. In 1906, the hospital was moved. The buildings were rearranged to house the social work offices in 1939. Occupied during the Second World War, the offices passed into the hands of the French navy and then the national technical collège Colbert from 1948. In 1973, it was renamed the Cité Salvador Allende and hosts Lorient associations.

The modern part of the hospital was designed by architects Valode and Pistre (inaugurated in 2013). The restructured part was part of the former Army Hospital which became in 1983 the Albert-Calmette Hospital, named after the Navy doctor co-inventor of tuberculosis vaccination.

With the arrival of the railway in Lorient in 1862, the crossing of the Scorff requires the construction of an important work of art, a real technical challenge. Ten arches in granite masonry and three metal bays connect the two banks. At the Nepveu company that carries out the work, the project manager is none other than Gustave Eiffel. .. In 1910, a footbridge attached to the metal structure, allows pedestrians to cross the Scorff for a penny of toll.

Taking its source in the Côtes d'Armor, the Scorff travels nearly 75 km before throwing itself into the sea. Its estuary stretches for 12 km, from Bas Pont-Scorff to Lorient. Its landscape reveals this meeting between the river and the sea, fresh water and salt water. The wooded banks follow the paluds and reed beds, flooded during the high tides. This cove provides shelter and an incredible reservoir of food for river and marine birds, such as cormorants and gulls… The little white heron, the egret garzette, which feeds on fish, worms and crabs, nests in colonies in the trees.

Around 1750, when the banks of the Scorff were bursting with shipyards, the workers began to occupy the land and settled there by building cabins from salvaged wood. The name of Ville-en-bois is used in opposition to the city of Lorient where houses and buildings were built in stone. The district will be the first in Lorient to suffer the Allied bombing on the night of 26 to 27 September 1940.

It was built in the second half of the 15th century by the Rohans, the nobles of Guémené and owners of Trefaven chateau, probably on the site of an original oratory. Over a crossing point, it was placed under the protection of Saint Christopher. Sober and gothic in style, it is made entirely of granite and comprised of a simple central nave with two semi-transepts that adjoin a later sacristy and aisle. The nave is covered with a blue-painted wood-panelled roof. It opens onto a three-sided chancel with three large windows. The bell tower reposes on nine Doric columns topped with triangular pediments pierced with trefoils and was rebuilt several times in the 19th century. It was rebuilt in the 1950s following damage in the Second World War.

The Tréfaven powder magazine is the oldest building in the town of Lorient, dating from before the creation of the French East India Company. It is the main building of a 14th century chateau, converted to a fortress in 1482 by Louis II de Rohan-Guémené. In the 18th century, the French East India Company stored gunpowder there. Used as a prison during the revolution, the castle was bought by Napoléon in 1805 and assigned to the imperial Navy. The main building was again used as a gunpowder magazine until 1973. The French Navy left in 2002 but remain its owner.

Designed in 1970, this ten-hectare park is the largest green space in Lorient. Overlooking the Scorff valley, it stretched over farm fields, traces of which remain: an embankment with some apple trees and hundred-year-old chestnuts near the lake. Containing more than 600 trees, it also has a lake, fed by natural springs, where coots and duck live. The park is managed ecologically without pesticides or chemicals, partially grazed and its flowerbeds and meadows require no watering.

Following France’s poor results in the 1968 Olympic Games swimming competition, the State launched a tender to build a series of one thousand swimming pools to teach the nation to swim. The architect Bernard Schoeler replied with the “Tournesol” swimming pool, covered but convertible into an open-air pool by opening the dome 120°. 180 “Tournesol” pools were built between 1972 and 1984. Lorient’s pool dates from 1977. As well as looking like a flying saucer, these pools were original in their construction: a metal frame combined with a roof of prefabricated slates comprised of two polyester skins and a foam core for heat insulation.

Created by the town in 1979, 110 allotments for gardening.

Ponds have a very diverse plant and animal ecosystem. They shelter many species of fauna and flora some of which are threatened and depend on these bodies of water. The ecological pond is a little haven for observation, learning and wonderment!

On your left, planted by children from nearby schools (with the help of the City’s gardeners), this orchard has more than sixty trees. Among the species, table or knife apples (Queen of queens, Jonagold, Cox orange, White Queen of Canada), but also cider apples (Douce Moën, Coëtligné, Kermerrien, Fréquin) for the production of lorient cider. Cherry and plum trees also adorn the fruit garden.

To your left is the Lavoir of Kerulvé, this small wash house is granite it is located below the rue de Kerulvé. It is fed by a spring and shaded by an oak.

After the war, all that was left of this 17th century fountain was a hole almost buried beneath mud and brambles where cattle came to drink. Only when the land belonging to the Bourgneuf manor house was bought by the town, were the ruins revealed. Many of the stones had been stolen but the fountain as it existed in the 1940s remained in the memories of many. It was completely restored in 1992.

The path lined with an embankment of oak that passes through the housing estate reveals Kerfichant’s recent agricultural past. Sunken paths were recorded on the land registry as service paths and were the traditional routes people took through the landscape of fields and hedges (bocage). They used to link the fields to the villages, hamlets and farms. Where preserved, they increase the local biodiversity and act as a biological corridor allowing the survival of many species.

Oaks line the path that runs along the pipe route from Belle Source to Chevassu park. The location of the spring can still be seen behind the Kerguestenen old people’s home where oak trees form a circle around a wetland.

Julien Auguste Pelage Brizeux (1803-1858), a Breton romantic poet, was a friend of Musset, Victor Hugo and Sainte-Beuve. He chose Brittany and the sea as the main themes for his poetry. His French poems (Marie, La Fleur d'or, Les Bretons) or his Breton poem (Telenn Arvor) evoke the landscapes of his childhood with simplicity.  He is buried in Carnel cemetery. Erected in 1888, his statue was inaugurated in the presence of Ernest Renan and Jules Simon.

The former property of Victor Chevassu, this wonderful two and half hectare hilly park has a stream flowing through it that feeds a lake. In it you will see a beautiful collection of plants (camellias, rhododendrons and tree ferns...), unique trees ("caramel" trees, "tissue" trees...) as well as an animal enclosure (deer, sheep and goats).

At the beginning of the 18th century, the harbour grew with the French East India Company, but drinking water was scarce. The architect Jacques V Gabriel entrusted the engineer Louis de Saint-Pierre with the construction of aqueducts from the springs in the current districts of Lanveur, Kerguestenen and Kerfichant. The network was operational in 1740. The water flows to the harbour thanks to gravity in pipes like the one you can see in the park, at the foot of the steps to the house

In the Youri Gagarine Park lies the faculty of Languages, Human and Social Sciences of Lorient also called “Le Paquebot” after the ship-like shape of its structure, built in 1990.

These houses with their high-quality fronts and varied designs reflect the contractors' catalogues of the 1930s. They are an example of individual workers' housing. Most of the rooftops are made with locally produced mechanical tiles.

Deconstruction, renovation, reconstruction... Over a decade, the Kervénanec district has seen considerable urban renewal with the construction of individual houses and small apartment buildings to replace the towers from the 70s.

This four-hectare garden was created in 2009.Its valley, created by the exploitation of an old granite quarry, hosts a collection of sculptural plants, grasses and ferns... ferns that are repeated on the railing of the passageway across the valley. A “dry river” evokes the Le Venzu stream which ran from the Keryado district to the shores of the Ter. Oak, chestnut and ancient pines, as well as a fountain fully restored by a group of inhabitants, have been preserved in the garden.

Designed by the architect Roland Schweitzer, former student of Auguste Perret (reconstruction of Le Havre) and pioneers of the renewal of wooden architecture in France. This contemporary architecture is driven by an impulse of creativity that translates into a great wealth in the production of forms, diversity of styles, use of materials. The design of the hostel and the choice of materials, wood and concrete, are directly related to the immediate environment. A staircase with terraces on 3 levels, allows to marry the slopes of the ground. Natural light, dimmed by the surrounding trees, enters the building through numerous openings.

Crossing Ploemeur, Lorient and Larmor-Plage, the river Ter, consisting of 25 kilometers of water and 35 km2 of watershed, flows into the sea in the harbor of Lorient. Its estuary, under marine influence, once housed in its brackish waters trout, mules, plaice, bass and wild oysters. It now feeds the two ponds of Saint-Mathurin and Kermélo. The first, was constituted in 1756 during the construction of the dike of the Moulin Neuf which takes its name from a chapel. It was built near the bridge crossing the Ter, it was destroyed by the Germans during the construction of the railway line. The Kermélo pond was formed in 1967 when a dyke bridge was built.

A housing estate from the 1960s, this district was built on a post-reconstruction garden-city design. Noticeable for its modern village layout, which includes apartment buildings, facilities and shops in the centre. The houses are built on several templates designed by a group of Lorient architects. It is a rare example of economic suburban housing: construction techniques, layout and location in the street, repetition, aligned and offset, terraced houses.

The passage of Kermélo, once served by a ferry connecting the two banks of the Ter, was given a wire suspension bridge in 1838, 122 metres long. It was replaced by a reinforced concrete bridge in 1919, and then by the current embankment-bridge, built in 1967. The valves are used to control the level of the brackish waters of the lake, fed by the freshwater of the Ter and the saltwater from the ocean. The lake is regularly emptied and refilled by the high tides to renew the water.

Nothing remains of the old village of Keroman, on which the Germans built a major base between 1941 and 1944 to house their submarines. As part of the Atlantic wall, it will be the largest reinforced concrete military complex built by the Third Reich. Designed according to the typical plans of the Todt organization, it consists of three huge blocks on a total surface of 60 623 m 2, comprising 21 bays on the sea side, connected by rail, land side, workshops and housing. Concrete roof slabs, 3 to 7 m thick, are reinforced by almost indestructible bomb-proof structures. After the war, the site was taken over by the French Navy to develop its activity until 1997. Completely converted, the submarine base is now a tourist centre in its own right. Lorient the Base, includes visiting spaces, the City of Sailing Eric Tabarly, the Flora submarine, the underwater museum, the discovery of K3, and the offshore racing pole, international scale.

The Pen Duick is the name of the first boat of Eric Tabarly, naval officer, navigator and sailor legend whose museum space the Cité de la Voile bears the name. In Breton, this name means “little black head” (pen: head, du: black, and ick is the diminutive mark). This is the name given to the bird called “black tit”. Behind the Pen Duick is an original playground that blends into the landscape with its maritime decoration and wooden structures designed for children.

The Eric Tabarly sailing museum was designed by the architect Jacques Ferrier in tribute to the navigator Eric Tabarly, who disappeared at sea in June 1998.Its iridescent aluminium hull ranges from grey to blue and from mauve to purple depending on the position of the sun.Technology such as solar panels and water pumps produce heat and cool the building during the summer.

In June 1940, Admiral Doenitz, commander of the German submarine fleet, visits French ports to build large bases for U-boats and to conduct the Battle of the Atlantic from these advanced bases. In the autumn of 1940, Doenitz moved his staff to Lorient, as close as possible to his men. Between February 1941 and January 1943, three gigantic reinforced concrete blocks were built on the Keroman peninsula. In 1943, a fourth block is being built. Supply and maintenance of U-boats are carried out under concrete thicknesses up to 9 m.In the same year 1943, the Allies destroy the city to 80% while the Germans 'hold' the Atlantic. After the liberation, on 10 May 1945, the French navy invested in the site until 1997. It now hosts companies related to the nautical activity.

In 1918 the state plans to build a large industrial fishing port to compete with English and Dutch fishing activities. The Lorient project, designed by architect Henry Verrière is retained. Inaugurated in 1927, the tidal port with 2 basins rises in the Keroman bay. Ultra-modern equipment combined with a ship repair platform and an ice box since its foundation, it is the first French lobster port and the second fishing port with 26,000 tonnes of fish, molluscs and crustaceans landed in 2015.

Old road that led to a stone quarry from the seventeenth century, the avenue de la Perrière became the center of the port area after 1945. The avenue, punctuated with red and green beacons, distributes in spikes the fishing and commercial ports.

One night in October in 1710, a sailor stole two chalices from the parish church L’Orient. Sacrilege! The Breton parliament ordered his execution. Under the orders of Louis 14th, this monument topped with a cross known as the “cross of truth” was erected on the site where the thief buried his loot. It was classified a “historical monument” in 1944.

Sanctified in 1786 under the reign of Louis 15th, the Carnel cemetery is the oldest and largest one in Lorient. In this burial site from 1804, famous people from the town’s history are buired, such as the poet Auguste Brizeux, the “doctor of the poor” Louis Bodélio and the French aviation pioneer Marc Pourpe. It also contains a military area with 321 graves.

“The future of our port is in the mudflats”. It was on this formula, pronounced in 1927 by the member of Parliament for Morbihan, Édouard Labes, that the deep water port was born. Indeed, before the development of the port of commerce, the district of Nouvelle ville -on your left - was located on the edge of the mudflat of Kergroise (41 hectares) - to your right. This has been partially filled by the war debris. According to the historical research of Pierre Mayol it would have swallowed 15.000 m3 of ramparts, kaolins and some hulls of clippers (or three-masts) of the canal of the Martinière. The construction of this polder stretches in successive tranches from 1920 to 1973 to make it an area dedicated to traffic and maritime trade.

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.

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.

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.

This area hosted the stores of the Compagnie des Indes used for the deposit of goods brought back from India until the time of their sale. Built in the 18th century on the plans of Jacques V Gabriel, they became in the 19th a place of barracks and learning before suffering the bombing of 1943.The colonnade or "peristyle" that opened the building on the Scorff gave the name of its quay and the promenade housing the port. The site is now the site of the Maison de l'intercommunality du Pays de Lorient designed by the architect Jean de Giacinto.