Historique de PORT Grimaud, l'oeuvre de F. Spoerry par Yves Lhermitte

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At the end of the Gulf of Saint Tropez, nestling around its castle, the beautiful medieval village GRIMAUD seems to watch proudly, from the top of its hill, over the most famous of its districts, its lake city PORT GRIMAUD, the work of the genius architect François SPOERRY.

This history is the fruit of dozens of hours of research, work, composition... and passion !
The most provided, the most complete. And it continues to grow richer and richer
Enjoy reading it...

BIRTH :

" We always say that in old age we achieve what we dreamed of as children. It must be true. Because three images led me to the creation of Port Grimaud.
      First of all the model of this prehistoric lake city often visited as a child in the Zurich museum.
      Then Venice, which I discovered at the age of 40 and which is for me the symbol of the tamed sea.
      Finally all these Mediterranean ports where I anchored my boat with my friends. As I docked, I always wondered why these ports of call in Greece, Spain or Turkey were so enchanting when in France there were so few, especially between Cassis and Saint-Tropez. "

      François Spoerry

... Thus was born PORT GRIMAUD.

SEA, SUN and CULTURE :

Our beautiful region is: SEA, SUN and CULTURE

The architect Georges Edery wrote in the architecture magazine 'Le Carré bleu' talking about PORT-GRIMAUD :
"We are here in an ecological urban concept based on an architecture to live in that favours a community atmosphere".

All the HAPPINESS :

      Against a backdrop of sails and masts, between canals and islets, between houses and boats, a new freedom begins, open to the open sea and bathed in a gentle way of life like no other.
      Here everything appeals to the senses. Under the Mediterranean sun, the colours sing, the scents mingle.
      Everywhere the green of the gardens, like a replica of the blue of the water, creates shade and freshness. Every day, Port Grimaud brings back the happiness of the seaside villages,

PORT GRIMAUD is above all and above all the village of all happiness....

Photo from another time, which we will never be able to take again... because the wild herbs have been pulled out... photo: Yves Lhermitte

" It would be important not to distort the lakeside character of Port Grimaud and to preserve
its tranquillity from all the hustle and bustle that modern cities suffer from..." (François SPOERRY)

TRIBUTE :

Mr SPOERRY, creator of PORT-GRIMAUD passed away on 11 January 1999.
He rests in the Church of the Lake City...

François SPOERRY has left us...
He probably left to build elsewhere,
in another galaxy, a new city
for all sea-loving souls...
Have a nice trip Mr SPOERRY and thank you...

Daybreak in Port Grimaud...

'20th century heritage' :

       On 11th September 2004, at the "Cité Radieuse" in Marseille, the Mayor of Grimaud, Mr BENEDETTO, in the presence of the presidents of Port Grimaud 1, 2 and 3, Mrs MARTRES, TROEGELER and BACOU, received from the hands of the Regional Director of Cultural Affairs, Mr BREDEL, the nameplate designating PORT GRIMAUD as 20th century architectural heritage.
       This label was created in 1999 by the Ministry of Culture and Communication. Port Grimaud was registered under the name "Seaside resort known as Port Grimaud".
       ( The label "Remarkable Contemporary Architecture" now replaces this former label "20th century heritage" since the law of 7 July 2016 ).
       A tribute was paid to the creator of the lakeside town, Mr François SPOERRY.
       Each Port of Grimaudois must now ensure that the town's architecture is respected, so that it retains its Provencal identity, which is what makes its success...

The bare land on which PORT GRIMAUD was built, to the left of the river La Giscle and Les Marines de Cogolin, to the right...

the land where PORT GRIMAUD was built

Another view of the site from the campsite 'Les Prairies de la Mer'

CRITICAL :

      "Congratulations Mr. Spoerry for this marvellous achievement, which, authorised by the public authorities, has finally made it possible to show men, with an impact that is still unequalled, the way you preach, perhaps without knowing it, decadence".
      This sentence is the conclusion of an article written in 1972 by 3 architects, D.Amouroux, M.Crettol, J.P Monnet in their 'Guide to Contemporary Architecture in France',
      shows to what extent François Spoerry's work has been strongly criticised and misunderstood. Favouring a horizontal construction respecting a Mediterranean architectural tradition went against the fashion of the time, driven by Le Corbusier's fame, with modern and cold constructions, avant-garde buildings for the time which were called "radiant cities", and which, 50 years later, have aged very badly, unlike PORT GRIMAUD.
      Our lakeside town has become famous. It succeeds admiration. We have tried many times to copy it. It is now proudly and naturally part of the Mediterranean architectural landscape.
      If our lakeside town is beautiful and admired, it was not built without difficulty. Not only bad criticism or mockery from other architects, but also administrative difficulties, many problems due to its unique design for the time. So our lakeside city has a history!
      It is this 'adventure' that we would like to tell you here...

once upon a time PORT GRIMAUD
history of the lakeside town

Advertising on Port Grimaud...

Peaceful atmosphere :

Eroded by winds laden with sea spray, patinated by the ardent rays of a bitter Mediterranean sun, the lakeside town ages well until it becomes mischievously integrated into the beautiful Provencal landscape.
In order to discover it well, to enjoy the little privileged moments that one can invent for oneself every day, it is necessary, on a boat, to go for an early morning walk, when the village is still asleep and the sun lazily stretches out its first rays, and to drift along the calm, smooth canals, reflecting like a magic mirror the facades of the harmoniously varied houses. One can thus admire the slow progression of the light, strangely golden at the end of the dawn to pale with the rise of the star and the disappearance of the mists until it magnifies the palette of ochres and pastels... To penetrate oneself with the silence, the peaceful atmosphere of the lakeside city.

Daybreak on the Church... C'est un moment magique! photo: Yves Lhermitte

You have to take the time to stroll along these whimsical alleyways and let yourself be surprised by these small details that F. Spoerry wanted to be numerous (dovecotes, fountains, deceptive frescoes, ...) anonymously drowned in the whole to better 'soften' the architecture ...
Port Grimaud is all of this, a collection of emotions that are born and die along the way.

Other publicity...

Beauty Secrets :

What is the beauty of PORT GRIMAUD ? :

       A few small details which may seem unimportant but which are nevertheless essential and give all its grace, its harmony, and its beautiful architectural difference to the lakeside town :
        - The difference in height of house roofs.
        - The variety of colours of the facades.
        - The variety of openings, doors, windows, balconies and balustrades.
        - The streets that refuse any straight lines and seem to follow the unevenness of the ground.
        - The houses that fit into each other, sometimes anarchically, as if they had been built out of necessity, without an architect.
        - Architectural details placed here and there in the city, dovecote above a porch, trompe l'oeil frescoes, various genoises, pediments inspired by ancient architecture...
        - And above all, the most important detail, the façades are never perfectly vertical (the architects obliged the masons to make a slight gradation in the laying of the rubble or bricks, to avoid a perfect verticality: the plumb line was not the right thing to do!) These slightly "sloping" façades avoid sharp "breaks" and are more pleasing to the eye. All the charm of the lakeside town is due to this "not strictly vertical" facades, which is not found in PORT COGOLIN for example...

THE ARCHITECTURE OF THE 20th CENTURY :

In May 2010 a very interesting book was published by 'éditions Imbernon' on "L'ARCHITECTURE DU XXe siècle DANS le VAR", with a complaisant chapter on PORT GRIMAUD and its architect François SPOERRY..

Aurora...

PEOPLE linked to PORT GRIMAUD :

Vartan BERBERIAN :

      Vartan BERBERIAN passed away at the age of 94 on 14 March 2022. Vartan was a key figure in the history of the lakeside town.

      He came to his house at the end of the rue de la Tour as often as he could, and spent his afternoons playing pétanque with his many friends in the Place du Marché.
      The creator of a great many boules, each more beautiful than the last, he had registered around a hundred patents in the hope that his latest creation, a boule that he wanted to be universal, would be approved and that pétanque would finally become an event in the Olympic Games.

      In 2024, PG1 paid him the ultimate tribute by creating a petanque court on part of the Place du Marché. Inaugurated on 10 August 2024, it bears his name: the "Vartan BERBERIAN" petanque court.

"My father's fig tree" :

      Vartan, Armenian by birth, wanted to leave a written testimony to his incredible life and pay tribute to this discreet, hard-working, supportive and warm Armenian community. Vartan liked to say that he had three homelands: France, Armenia and the navy.
      His book is also a tribute to his family :
      To his mother, first of all, Mayrig, a woman with a big heart, a small figure dressed all in black, driven by an unparalleled gentleness and energy, who instilled in him a sense of effort and the value of hard work.

      To his father, too, Hayrig, who, having experienced the horror of Turkish jails, has nonetheless retained his joie de vivre and capacity for wonder. A biblical character straight out of an oriental tale, brimming with wisdom, this father crosses the book, casting a lucid and tender eye over his family, commenting on the habits and customs of this strange land of milk and honey: France.

      The book is also a veritable "apprenticeship novel", in which the author recounts the journey of the young Vartan, noticed by his teachers at school, and traces his extracurricular initiatives to earn money and help his parents, the humiliations he may have suffered because of his origins or poverty, his training in the navy, and then his success as an inventor…

      A fine lesson in optimism and a mine of information about a not-so-distant era.

Vartan was a true friend and was desperate for me to do the cover of his book for him :

Cover photo

Sea Sortie...

CHRISTOPHE :

The singer CHRISTOPHE used to come every year to spend a few days in the lakeside town...

Sometimes he would give us the pleasure to offer us a mini concert just for us, residents of PG2...

And often he played pétanque, place François Spoerry or place du Marché, sometimes with Vartan BERBERIAN...

Christophe left us on April 16, 2020 : We miss him...

Christophe offers us a mini-concert, place François Spoerry, during the last anchoyade in 2019....

Le lac intérieur...

Luc FERRY :

esr has been resident for several years at PORT GRIMAUD where, every year, we have the pleasure of a conference on a philosophical subject related to current events.

During one of its annual conferences at PORT GRIMAUD...

Our favourites :
Luc FERRY

The book that reconciled me with philosophy !

Luc FERRY

To know everything about Artificial Intelligence and transhumanism with its benefits and deviances...

Luc FERRY

Wisdom, truth and ethics: the 3 main axes of philosophy are, in this large dictionary, explained, dissected and related to the essential questions of the present time....

The Giscle is a very capricious river which can have strong floods as here on February 5th 1976:
The boats stranded on PG2 beach were swept away by the violent waters of the river from their moorings upstream of the bridge .

At the time of l'Atelier du Crabe...

Martine ALISON :

        " My world is full of dreams bordering on the naive, which leads me to a delicate sensuality " : Martine ALISON defines her inspiration in this way. Her canvases sparkle with colour and happiness. Flowers mingle with animals, comic book characters, in the middle of which a pretty young girl walks, draws, contemplates the landscape, rests, hitchhikes or seems to pose in front of the painter...
        Born in 59 in Saint Etienne, she became passionate about drawing very early on and possesses a wealth of inspiration which is very quickly found on these colourful canvases, bubbling with life...
        " My painting is a technique developed through hard work, it is the expression of a whole life. You have to have lived, accumulated experiences, stored up images, discovered freedom, met happiness and accepted to say... say with your brush... at the rhythm of beauty, the rhythm of your emotions. There is no secret, there is only authenticity, you don't have to search. You have to BE... BE without reserve, without constraint. Life has sculpted me like this, I don't invent anything, I execute. I observe and become aware of the abundance of life that surrounds me and I draw inspiration from it to create a work in the same tune, that is to say an act of an almost theatrical type where imagination can propel the scene "...

On peut la retrouver sur: Its website ou sur son Its Instagram.

You can discover and buy his paintings on : le Singulart or on the website Artmajeur

Some paintings... :

With PORT GRIMAUD for decoration...

Martine Alison

Other paintings by Martyine ALISON...

Le canal du Nord...

We liked... :

Jacques ALSAC :

Trip to the Yasur volcano in Vanuatu by Jacques Alsac, a co-owner of Port Grimaud South.
This video film was ranked 2nd by the vote of the photo-video clubs 'Objectif Image', for the Jean MASSON trophy, after the national video2012 meetings in Lannion.

Volcan Yasur :

Montage : Yves LHERMITTE

Bilou, Claude, Two celebrities who are part of the memory of PORT GRIMAUD...

Brume matinale...

VIGILANCE :

Dessins de Xavier BOHL:

Drawings by Xavier BOHL, published in: 'le COURRIER de PORT GRIMAUD' of May 1995... and still relevant !...

Website of the architectural practice :

www.xavierbohl.com :

Aerial view of Port Grimaud...

Ivan GOOD :

Discover PORT GRIMAUD CONTACT