Architects:ALEP Landscape, INCA Architectes

Area :500 m²

Year :2017

Photographs :Nicolas Castets

Lead Architect :Gilles Marty

Structure Consultants :SECOBA

Lighting Design :LUMINOcité

BET VRD : Egis

Be Structure : SECOBA

Bet Fluid : CETRALP

Project Architect : Pascale Deffayet

OPC : CESII

Scénography : PIG Images

Muséography : Véronique Mure

Client : Communauté d’Agglomération Béziers Méditerranée

Fluids Engineering : CETRALP

Scenography : PIG Images

Museography : Véronique Mure

City : Béziers

Country : France

The nine locks of Fonséranes, designed in the 17th century by Pierre-Paul Riquet, are listed as historical monuments and certified as world heritage by the Unesco. Sobriety and discretion have prevailed to re-think the layouts made in the close vicinity of the locks: a global re-entitlement of the architecture and the landscape has allowed a staging of the monument and a re-organization of the visit paths, thus creating a coherence between site and landscape.

The architectures of historical monuments play a major part. To find again the spirit of Fonséranes stopping place, restoration of existing buildings slots into the respect of the canal's engineers architecture and the original simplicity of its composition. The outside historical monuments have been carefully restored. The new inside layouts cover present needs and display their age without ambiguity.