Saline Royale d'Arc-et-Senans (by kerouac2)

[Deleted]

The saline royale (royal saltworks) was created in the latter part of the 18th century under the reign of Louis XV. The previous establishment was in the nearby town of Salins-les-Bains, but the saltworks there had been completely surrounded by the town and it was urgent to find a place with more space. Salt was much more important then than it is now, because besides human and animal consumption, it was the only way to preserve things such as meat or fish since there was no refrigeration, and that takes a lot of salt. Anyway, a location was found in the forest between the tiny villages of Arc and Senans. People absolutely never change because, just as there would be in the 21st century, there was a big outcry by various interest groups. The hunters said that their hunting would be spoiled, the forest workers said that their livelihood would be totally destroyed, the workers in Salins bitched about losing their jobs... all of the usual stuff.

The decision to build the new establishment was made in 1773. Meanwhile, the architect Claude-Nicolas Ledoux had accidentally on purpose been named Commissioner of the Saltworks of Lorraine and Franche-Comté in 1771 and he had already started drawing up tentative projects before he had any idea where the new saltworks would be, if the ground was level or not, or any other indications, so he let his imagination run wild without any constraints. He presented his project to the king in 1774, who was more or less on his deathbed, but another commission got in the way and rejected the project because it was considered too luxurious, particularly for the workers who apparently did not need to be housed in buildings with columns. A modified project was presented before the end of the year, and construction started in 1775. It was all finished by 1779 including stone roads leading to Switzerland and the canal of Dole, which took salt on the Rhine to Antwerp and the North Sea. It was a huge international enterprise.

The distance between Salins-les-Bains and the new saltworks was only 12.6km but it was necessary to build an underground brineduct running for 42km (due to the vagaries of the terrain) between the two places. That would be a pretty huge project now, but I can't even imagine how things like this were done in the 18th century. In any case, the new establishment was a great success and remained in service until 1895. Why did it close? Because the new-fangled railroads were bringing sea salt to everywhere on the continent.

The Saline Royale is considered to be Ledoux's masterwork, innovative and efficient and with decent housing for workers on site with room to grow crops and even providing some leisure activities for the families. It became a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1982 after quite a bit of tumult in the 20th century. A fire caused by lightning destroyed the roof of one of the main buildings in 1918. When the fine arts council in Paris wanted the buildings saved and restored in 1926, the salt company that still owned the site was furious. So they decreed the main buildings unsafe and dynamited them. The local departmental council was able to purchase the buildings in 1930 and set about slowly restoring them. But in 1939, the site was requisitioned to be a refugee camp for Spanish Republicans. At the end of 1939, the French army decided that they needed the place because trouble was brewing in the east, and in 1940 the German army also found it convenient as a base. Then they decided to transform it into an internment camp for gypsies. A couple of years later, it became a camp for German prisoners of war. So it has been a very busy place, but it wasn't until 1965 that it finally became an acknowledged cultural site and real renovation began.

A final fun fact: In July 2016, David Gilmour of Pink Floyd gave a concert there with 19,000 spectators so that should give you an idea of the size of the place.

Anyway, last week I found myself in front of the entrance 30 minutes before it opened.





Have you ever tried to represent the flow of brine in a stone carving? Neither have I.









I had 30 minutes to discover the village before visiting the saltworks.



Here is the town hall.



The coat of arms looks homemade.



And on I strolled.



The new school is quite modern and this place is now occupied by lawyers offices.







Let's make it a little more dramatic.



But the normal view is perfectly fine as well.

[Deleted]

Every village should have a harmless eccentric, and I found where the person lives.









The house had an official name painted on a sign: la maison des chats.











The season is beginning to change.



Here is where we are compared to other locations.



And I was back where I needed to be. I was the very first visitor of the day.

[Deleted]

There was an aerial photo of the site in the first antechamber showing the total design.



I stepped out into the central area.



Across the way is the former residence of the director.



In the pavillion devoted to the career of Claude-Nicolas Ledoux, there is an architectural model of the Saline Royale.





There were dozens of models from everywhere in France, but I found four that can still be seen in Paris. Many others have been demolished over the years.

                   

                   

One could climb upstairs to see how carefully crafted the roof was.

[mossie]

The village eccentric is perhaps no so harmless if he goes round stringing up Noddy and his mates. The cat could also be in danger from those tigers.

[Deleted]

There was a big artistic photographic exhibition devoted to the salt mines of the world.



The roof of this building was clearly rebuilt recently.





Originally the pipes of the brineduct were made out of hollowed logs. It was rapidly discovered that they had to be replaced by iron pipes.





Another building was devoted to the history of the complex and explained the lives of the workers.



This panel explains how they dithered over what to do with the place starting in 1945.



The UNESCO classification was extended to the original saltworks of Salins-les-Bains in 2009.





Around the outer circle of the buildings, there were temporary gardens for a special show, but their season had mostly ended.

Anyway, it was a nice stopover before continuing on my way...

[htmb]

This is quite interesting. Thanks for providing the history. I find it amazing that places like this were ever built.

[lagatta]

And of course, the "salt mines" are seen as one of the hardest jobs, and often a punishment. It must have been hard to build pipes of anything not corroded by the brine. We have so much corrosion here in Montréal just because of the road salt (more complex than just sodium chloride) used in the winter. Wrecks our boots as well.

[tod2]

I sometimes wonder how I miss these Threads until I notice the date posted. I am usually in Europe in September so miss out on all these very interesting excursions Kerouac has made during that time.
So glad I could click on the link Kerouac gave(from my Mulhouse post) and see what I missed!

[bixaorellana]

I have to echo what Tod said about missing threads. This one seems to have dropped out of the sky, but it's been setting here politely for over four years.

Anyway ~ how odd! how interesting!

Odd first: the director's house rivals the stuffed animal house in oddness, with its strange early Star Trek version of a classical Greek porch kind of tacked on to a tall French farmhouse. Also odd -- homemade looking, as you said -- is the coat of arms with its cheery attempt to include absolutely everything. The stuffed animal house of course makes one wonder what goes on in there and is there yet more unidentified weirdness in the town.

As far as interesting, it all is. Factories and works are always fascinating, and the story of the designing, building, and many subsequent uses is really something.

I do have questions, though: where did the salt come from to begin with? Why was a brineduct (such a great word!) needed between the old works at Salins-les-Bains and the new works? On the architectural model of the Saline Royale, are those low walls radiating out from behind the buildings places for the brine to dry and turn into crystals?

It would be very cool for Saline Royale to incorporate some working models into the exhibit.

Sept 9, 2016 14:55:14 GMT undefined said:

Originally the pipes of the brineduct were made out of hollowed logs. It was rapidly discovered that they had to be replaced by iron pipes.

This is the exact opposite of what I saw in the salt works outside Trapani. There, wood was used for the Archimedean screw, as metal corroded too quickly in the salt air. Obviously the hollowed logs of the Saline Royal brineduct fared poorly underground, so iron was the better choice.

[kerouac2]

Aug 7, 2020 4:29:14 GMT bixaorellana said:

I do have questions, though: where did the salt come from to begin with? Why was a brineduct (such a great word!) needed between the old works at Salins-les-Bains and the new works?

Well the salt water is apparently underground at Salin-les-Bains. Creating a brineduct just made it so much easier to transport the necessary item from one place to another, as anyone who has ever built an aqueduct would probably tell us.

The guided tour that I once took there explained that the brine was in flat basins inside the buildings with fires underneath to make the water evaporate. I don't even want to imagine the working conditions.