La Grande-Motte (Hérault) was for a long time, in the eyes of many French people, just a heap of concrete, where Julyists and Augustians piled up each summer. Until the beginning of the 2010s, we found its architecture particularly ugly, inherited from the 1960s and 1970s. However, today, the seaside resort, star of the Hérault coast, shines. And his long-mocked pyramids have become Instagram classics. A return to favor which is not by chance: for fifteen years, in La Grande-Motte, we have been fighting for the image of this town to change. And it hasn’t been easy. 20 minutes questioned those who carried out this pharaonic project for almost fifteen years.
But first, a little background. This seaside resort like no other emerged from a swamp in the late 1960s, at the request of General de Gaulle, who wanted to develop the Languedoc coast, in an attempt to stem the flight of tourists to Spain. It was the architect Jean Balladur, the cousin of the former Prime Minister, who was responsible, at the time, for designing La Grande-Motte. He makes it an ultra-modern city, and very (too?) ahead of its time: shade everywhere, pedestrian and cycle paths galore, the car relegated to the entrance to the city… A “utopia achieved “says Thomas Blancart, associate director of Temaprod, a firm specializing in heritage enhancement, and which was, at the beginning of his career, responsible for promoting the architecture of La Grande-Motte, at the tourist office of the town. .
“It was, at the time, a UFO, which did not fit into any box”
But quickly, the architecture of Jean Balladur is disparaged. “It’s an avant-garde architectural work,” explains Thomas Blancart. It is neither modern nor post-modern, if we use the terms used by architectural historians. It was, at the time, a UFO, which did not fit into any box. When La Grande-Motte rose from the ground, Jean Balladur’s own peers, his fellow architects, criticized him. At the time, in the press, it was said that it was “the example of what should not be done”, that it was “an example of concrete and stupidity”. Sarcelles-sur-Mer, what. »
At the beginning of the 2010s, convinced of having an unfairly unknown heritage, the town hall and the Tourist Office of La Grande-Motte, under the baton of Stephan Rossignol (LR), mayor since 2008, began a long process, to that we see this seaside resort differently. Because, according to a survey commissioned by the town hall, at the time, from a prestigious institute, everyone, or almost, knew this resort in the Hérault, but nearly 40% had a rather negative image of it. In the minds of a good third of the French, La Grande-Motte was a concrete monster, lined with rabbit cages where we spent the summer. “We get nothing for nothing, it was a long-term policy”, underlines Stephan Rossignol (LR), mayor of La Grande-Motte since 2008.
“It took four or five decades to understand Balladur’s vision”
“The challenge was difficult, confirms Jérôme Arnaud, the station manager for twelve years. It had to be demonstrated that this image no longer corresponded to reality. “Because, fifty years after the harsh criticism against Jean Balladur, “his work had reached maturity”, he continues. “When you look at the photos of La Grande-Motte in the 1970s or 1980s, the trees are 50 centimeters or 3 meters high, you only see the concrete. Today, they are 15 to 20 meters high. Of course, the landscape changes. We must pay tribute to the architect, who had this vision from the start. It took four or five decades to understand his vision. That’s what being a visionary is. La Grande-Motte, too concrete? This is false, adds Thomas Blancart. It is “one of the greenest cities in Europe, he says. 70% of the area covered by the municipality are planted areas. When you arrive at La Grande-Motte, you enter a forest. »
Like many other creations of the 20th century, “it took time for the architecture of La Grande-Motte to mature. And so that we have enough hindsight to judge it, ”continues this specialist in heritage development. In 2010, the Ministry of Culture will help the town in its quest, by awarding it the Heritage of the 20th Century label, which aimed to highlight the achievements of the last century. “It was a changeover, assures Thomas Blancart. The Ministry of Culture told La Grande-Motte “You have a major architectural ensemble, and we suggest that you label not a building or a district, but the whole city”. And that is recognizing that the whole city is a work of art. As long as a heritage does not specify its character, it does not exist. As soon as this label was awarded, people suddenly began to wonder about this architecture that we weren’t looking at. Everyone was only interested in the sea.”
“Can you imagine the change? »
To amplify the impact of this prestigious label, the municipality has “removed its glasses with a tourist filter, to put on glasses with a cultural filter, explains Jérôme Arnaud. There were, at the time, approximately 200,000 euros per year of purchases of advertising space, to promote the station. We stopped everything. The municipality has chosen to give the floor to academics, so that they work on the architecture of Jean Balladur. But, above all, to artists, so that they use the city as a field of expression, to designers, so that they imagine furniture, inspired by the forms of the station… Or to photographers, so that they reveal the beauty of La Grande-Motte. “For years, at La Grande-Motte, photographers only photographed the sea,” continues Thomas Blancart. In the early 2010s, when this change took place, Jérôme Arnaud asked photographers to turn around and photograph architecture. Can you imagine the change? Take brochures of La Grande-Motte from the 1980s and 1990s, and those of today are day and night. »
These artists, “we didn’t ask them anything, we didn’t impose anything on them, specifies the director of the station. And yet, they all found La Grande-Motte inspiring. It was beneficial for us. Especially with the media. Jérôme Arnaud remembers in particular a journalist from Telerama, who, having come to visit La Grande-Motte for four days, refused to be accompanied in her work by the city services. “We were shaking a little, I won’t hide it from you,” he confides. Few weeks later, Telerama came out with, on the cover, “Who said La Grande-Motte was ugly?” That day, we said to ourselves that our fight had a chance of working… We were right. »
such a big sun “shows in its credits the great pyramid”
The renewed interest in the culture of the seventies was the last little boost from which the town benefited. Between 2010 and 2020, the image of La Grande-Motte changed. “Many magazines are regularly interested in La Grande-Motte, details the mayor. And we also have a lot of filming. such a big sun, which, every evening, on France 2, shows in its credits the great pyramid. Or clips or shootings, in front of our buildings… This is proof that our architecture has become attractive. »
And the Hérault seaside resort has even moved upmarket, becoming the most chic on the Hérault coast: 70% of hotel rooms are four-star, and two of the four Five-stars in the Hérault department are at La Grande -clod. But the municipality does not lower its guard, and multiplies the initiatives, so that we talk about it. Recently, she even imagined a cake mold (yes, yes), on the model of Eden, one of her most famous buildings, so that great pastry chefs can take it over and create desserts… in form of La Grande Motte.