MAISON DU CURISTE

Gallery with painting and sculpture exhibitions.

Art gallery featuring temporary exhibitions (paintings, sculptures, arts and crafts).

Soothing baths were used as a counterbalance to sulphurous water baths. Made from herbs, they had soothing properties and were reputed to reduce nervous irritability. There were emollient baths available in the town: the spa management company had a dedicated building constructed on the Quinconces, on the site of the former horse-washing pool, which is still shown on Castex’s 1882 map. Press articles from May 1895 indicate that artists were commissioned to decorate the casino’s grand ballroom and the new emollient baths complex, which provides an approximate date of construction. B. Castex’s design, dated October 1891, does not appear to correspond to the scheme that was ultimately adopted. In that design, the baths occupied the ground floor, whilst accommodation for the supervisor was provided on the first floor. The adjoining annexe (to the west) housed offices. The baths were arranged in a U-shape, accessed via a covered gallery and a service passage at the rear. Each wing of the U-shape contained eight bathing cubicles, preceded by changing rooms. The central wing housed a shower and two bathing cubicles in the centre, whilst the corners of the U were reserved, on one side, for the heating room and, on the other, for the toilets and laundry room. The building ended on the east side with three apses dedicated respectively to the wood store, the coal store and the boiler room (in the centre).
When its purpose changed in 1920, the pavilion was converted to accommodate radioactive baths and was renamed the “Moureu Pavilion” in honour of the chemist Charles Moureu. Water from the Lepape spring was channelled there and was used to treat conditions such as rheumatism and high blood pressure.
The building now houses the “spa guests’ centre”, a place for relaxation and exhibitions available to spa guests.