Historique de Port Grimaud: New with Recycled

New with Recycled :

The desire to integrate Port Grimaud fully into the Mediterranean landscape led the architect to use old materials...
They create a warm atmosphere, a discreet and intimate charm and take advantage of the lessons of a thousand-year-old past and adapt them to the present.

Demolition site in Romans :

The first section of Port Grimaud was built largely thanks to the recovery of tiles, roofing, carpentry and ironwork from a vast demolition site in a district of Romans, in the Drôme...

" Antique tiles", said François SPOERRY, "have a considerable advantage: they welcome and preserve spontaneous moss formations, which give the tiles unexpected variations in colour, whereas mechanical tiles ultimately have too closed a texture: Overcooked and refusing vegetation, they age only with great difficulty...

Flowers can now be seen growing on these tiles...

fleurs sur toit a port grimaud

Similarly, if we used recycled tiles, it was to find the craftsman's "touch" through the manufactured product, to discover his manufacturing irregularities and "mistakes"...The same concern with the beams that we sought to implement each time we had to make a wooden construction element.

In other cases, when we could not find old craft elements, we tried to restart a manual manufacture compatible with the economy of the project and generally, we succeeded, as shown, for example, by the acacia turned stair treads in which we find this craft flavour that we are looking for..."

These recycled materials allowed the architect to build the first stage at a lower cost, which was no longer the case when the stock was exhausted because the building materials most similar to this 'old' were very expensive...

The first stone on 2 October 1966 :

       "That this city born in joy often shelters the happiness of its inhabitants".

       This is the text that was inscribed on the parchment sealed into the symbolic 1st stone of PORT GRIMAUD, on 2 October 1966.

       The work had already started several weeks ago...

1st postcard :

One of the earliest postcards of Port Grimaud with the Grand'Rue and Chaussète finished and bordering the Place des 6 Canons, the Architect's offices and the sales office.

For information :

The GOLFE of GRIMAUD :

Grimaud originates from an ancient village called Sambracis, inhabited by the Sambran tribe. At the time, it gave its name to the Gulf of Saint-Tropez: Golfe de Sambratie, Golfe Sambracitain, Sinus sambracitanus.

Then the gulf took the name of golfe de Grimaud until the end of the 19th century.

Staff map from the end of the 19th century

       The small village of Saint Tropez then began to become famous thanks to Maupassant, Emile Ollivier or Colette and many others, attracting tourists and developers.
       Foreign sailors were more familiar with Saint Tropez than with Grimaud, which had no port. They were the first to speak of the Gulf of Saint Tropez rather than referring to it by its real name 'Gulf of Grimaud'...

       Perhaps if PORT GRIMAUD had existed at that time, they would logically have mentioned the :

"golfe of Port-Grimaud" !

Between Saint Pons and Guerrevieille, promoters became interested in this seaside where they created housing estates. And to be able to sell them, they did not hesitate to take advantage of the fame of Saint Tropez to locate their properties in the "golfe de Saint Tropez", certainly more 'selling' than "golfe de Grimaud"...

This is why Grimaud lost its gulf to its neighbour...

THE WORK of François SPOERRY...