Museum of the Mont-Gerbier-de-Jonc
Lyrical and mysterious landscape, where the foarming torrents fight against tellric mountain rocks which worries man in the winter and thrills him at summertime.
The romanticism that lived in the tourists early 20th century found in the Mont Gerbier a presence in line with its expectations.
Even if the happy mess look and the booths don’t flatter the site at first feel, the Mont Gerbier has an old-fashionned charm that reminds us the saga of the Tour de France when tourism wasn’t yet a mass business but a popular, simple and honest one.
This feeling moved us and led us at each stage of our architectural work.
We have left aside the idea of a polished landscape as seen in so many touristic spots and ultimately make them all look the same !
Our project carries the vacumm and the minerality that characterize the old postcards.
A single material, a local concrete composed of basalt, shapes the balcony platform on the landscape, organizes the parking lots to be used up to the Touring club de France Chalet’s reorientation. Without complacency, this modest but strong material echoes the power of the Mount. This material comes from the site in its most primitive nature and yet it is contemporary. It is this simple construction, without any special composition, that contrast or get lost in the landscape to highlight its own geography. This landscape is at first a line that draws the mountains in the horizon.
Inviting a friend to discover this incredible place, we would like to tell him :
Breathe, admire this infinite view, enjoy the fresh air, the perfume of the gentian, contemplate and site on a rock : here you are… You are at the Mont Gerbier…
