Royan is a holiday resort mainly for French people. The kilometre-wide Gironde flows into the Atlantic here, halfway between Bordeaux and La Rochelle. There are wide sandy beaches and rocky bays, pine forests, in the hinterland the moors along the Seudre, the colorful huts of the oyster farmers. But Royan should have been known for something else long ago: its architectural heritage. The city of 18,000 is the only French seaside resort that was built almost entirely in the style of the 1950s, witness to an airy, playful, daring modernism, a unique open-air architecture museum. Royan, according to the French architecture critic Jacques Lucan, is “la ville la plus cinquante”, the 1950s city.
Reconstruction symbol: the Congress Palace has been renovated in Royan – Culture
