french architecture in baccarat.
every year in may my parent's village is celebrating the twinning with a little town in the french vosges mountains and it usually works like this: on a weekend in may a little entourage of citizens either visit our village in germany, or the village in france. it makes for a nice exchange between the two cultures. over the years friendships have been built through this practice and it's always lovely to welcome each other in warmth & friendship. i do believe having a twinning town in a different country is essential for understanding the people living in it and for the building of an intercultural bonding experience. it's interesting to witness how they live their lives, what traditions they are cultivating, what they have to deal with in everyday life, especially when it comes to political issues etc. also, seeing new places and new landscapes is contributing to an eye-opening experience, maybe even an expansion of our sometimes very narrow minds.
in recent years i haven't been able to participate in that exchange very much, but this year i finally managed to get a few days off for that time ( it's a national holiday time and usually it's really hard to take days off in this period, especially in the retail industry).
i absolutely love these visits as it means i get to expand my own little world map a tiny bit more. the region of the vosges mountains our twinning town is situated in is a really charming chunk of this earth, a beautiful mountainous & remote location with lots of sceneries that are brightening my little nature loving mind. it's still kind of a dream of mine to move back into a rural setting one day and on my list of dream places to live in the vosges mountains are definitely ranking very high.
on our very first full day of that particular weekend in may we made a trip to baccarat & lunéville, two locations famous for a) crystal glassware and b) the castle of lunéville. our first stop was baccarat with its very old crystal manufacture which is actually a company known world-wide for high-quality & luxurious crystal products. there's a little museum on the site of the manufacture where you can learn about the manufacturing aspects of the company and see quite a few special exhibits. while it was interesting to listen to the guide's explanations i would've loved it a lot more to enter the factory and see it with my own two eyes. but there are strict regulations you have to meet and it's also very hot in there, so it probably would've been an arduous experience anyway. i was about to be rewarded with one of the most impressing modern churches i have seen to date just a few moments later, though, so it all was outweighed somehow :)
those chandeliers are a specialty of the baccarat manufacture and were probably what made the company famous. they hang in a lot of european castles and representative properties world-wide.
these colourful wine glasses & the bottle ( called flute ) were inspired by the rheingau vineyard of johannisberg castle and probably manufactured for them. it always feels a bit like a win if you discover something that is related to something you know or to a place where you live or have been to before. like you realize that the world is small indeed and everything is kind of connected to each other.
art nouveau-inspired vase.
crystal glass furbishing par excellence. quite decadent interior elements.
the old manufactory building from afar. surrounding the factory were buildings especially designed to house the workers of the company, complete with a factory church. this proved to be very practical, as the factory owners had an eye on their workers while at the same time providing them a roof over their heads & even a comfortable life inside these buildings. it was a seminal practice back in the old days, and counted as an advancement in terms of factory management when most of them were still quite degrading & precarious towards their workers.
inside the courtyard of the factory with the surrounding housings. people still work & live here! the houses range from tiny cute appartments to a bit more of a family dwelling.
and now on to the gem of this post: the church saint remy. when we approached from afar you immediately could see this pointy tower, and upon seeing it i didn't know yet what it belonged to and if we would take a closer look at it at all. because obviously a group of relatively old people aren't known to be attracted to modern buildings but rather walking to the old & charming sights a city has to offer. and since i was with such a group i already feared we wouldn't have time to stop there so i could satisfy my lust for brutalist buildings, haha. BUT, as it turned out, this church was one of our goals. and guys, i fell in love with it, and not slightly, but hard.
the church was built between 1953 & 1957 by nicolas kazis and the reason why was because the old medieval one was destroyed in 1944 when the allies bombarded the city. it's situated right next to the banks of the meurthe river.
when got closer it finally dawned on me that this building must be some kind of a worshipping place and we were soon let it on the 'secret' that it was in fact a church. from the outside it looked quite outlandish and very minimal with the most prominent detail being the bell tower. but what do they say? don't judge something just by looking at it from the outside? because dear friends, this is very true.
the church from the back.
upon closer look you could make out some interesting details that suddenly embellished the mostly inornate exterior.
such as these stylized symbols on the glass windows (!) of the church. i added that exclamation mark because would you have known, just by looking at it, that these were windows?
very distinctive roof junction.
and a closer look at the concrete facade with its relief structures that look like computer circuit boards, a detail that i really liked.
the town hall of baccarat right on the opposite of where the church was. quite a contrast again and you know i love them ;) we went inside as well to have another look at one of the baccarat chandeliers, but it was only brief.
in the end our guide finally walked us to the church and told us to go inside to have a look at the crystal plates used for the windows. little did i know yet what i would be about to see. the second i entered my heart stopped for a second. i was immediately starstruck. the light, the atmosphere, it was unlike anything i had seen to date. i felt some kind of warmth running through my veins, like i had just entered a place that felt like a retreat. like a sacred place should feel, to be very honest.
my pictures really don't do the building any justice, it really needs to be experienced.
my parents were still waiting outside in the shadow of the church and i walked back out to go get them, because i really wanted to show them what this seemingly clunky building looked like from the inside. i liked the view from the main portal, and shot a quick photo as some form of recollecting my mind before entering back in.
the junction of the roof again which suddenly looked like opening arms to me.
there are several styles of 'windows', this one looked like body cells to me. all the glass inside this church was manufactured by the baccarat glass factory, which usually is only known for very opulent & historic looking glass designs.
here you can see the symbols again but now with the light coming through them to illuminate the church. absolutely divine.
looking back towards the organ, which was lit up with the colours of the upper glass window elements.
cross with wings.
the faces were synonymous with the several apostles of the bible. i don't really have a clue about who was who, but i loved that detail. i also loved the fact that it wasn't immediately recognizable. to me the faces looked like moons or planets with faces.
looking upwards to the concrete roof. the rawness of it really struck a chord with me.
the altar area. the rainbow colours coming from the top windows of the church felt so very inclusive and lovely. i don't know about you, but to me rainbows are the epitome of realizing how ethereal something is, how wondrous & full of surprises the world can be.
same area, slightly different perspective.
saying goodbye to this church was really hard for me, but we had to move on to reach our next destination, lunéville, where we would have lunch. i hope to revisit this church in the future again, hopefully on a more thorough vacation stay.
have some more baccarat images.
another town hall picture. loved the high roof.
the park behind the town hall. very french.
la meurthe being the perfect setting next to the church saint remy.
last picture before we went to lunéville.
when we arrived in lunéville we had a most delicious lunch in a tiny restaurant next to lunéville castle, le petit comptoir. i swear it truly was a menu made in heaven, really exquisite.
softly smoked ham with horseradish mousse . duck filets on noodles with a dill sauce . chocolate muffin in vanilla sauce & whipped cream with rose flavour.
after we were full of good food we went to take a look at the château de lunéville, a castle that was originally built in 1702 by germain boffrand. in 2003 a massive fire destroyed 2/3 of the whole complex and it sparked a huge movement to safe the historical building. what you can see now is mostly restored and not entirely original. it's still a magnificent piece of architecture, especially because it's been recovered by experienced & knowledgeable hands, carefully following the old plans. the big statue shows antoine charles louis de la salle, a famous french general.
entering the court of honour. the middle part of the castle can clearly be identified as being a restored part.
quite an impressive vestibule. the castle itself houses several exhibitions and museums, but we only did a brief tour with another guide through one part of the castle ( which is still being restored in other parts ).
high and bright windows inside the south east wing of the castle, it's called the room of the livery.
the chapel was completely destroyed after the fire, but now blazes in classical splendor again.
horse statue in the lower area of the staircase of honour.
going up the stairs. you couldn't enter the former ducal appartments, though.
we also went down to the basements, where my favourite thing were the paintings (?) of the stag skeletons.
a closer look at the horse statue. it was made out steel parts that looked like remnants of former tools.
the vestibule's original intention was to let guests enter their carriages without having to get wet. today it probably helps people flee bad weather as well, whenever a rain front comes their way. i love the shadow play in full sunshine, though.
little marie antoinette-like head above a window.
the castle was built in a classical style and manages to look very clean & sophisticated.
the garden was designed as typical french formal one, with symmetrical details, conformed trees and bushes and lots and lots of broderies. did you know it was designed like that because the philosophy behind it was to impose an order on nature, basically mankind overpowering any given natural structures? yes, some things never change.
it's not exactly my type of garden, it's just too unnatural & without any soul. it just pleases the aesthetic eye, but there's no depth in it.
it had a nice view back onto the castle, though.
some flower borders.
the fountains were a nice highlight. made the garden a bit more alive, haha.
after our guide tour was over we had still had a tiny bit of time to have a look at some of lunéville. so we made a little walk through the streets of the inner city & passed by another church, saint jaques.
i really like these typical french houses with the high vaulted entry doors.
we had to hurry quite a bit so the walk through the city wasn't very profound. we said our goodbyes to the castle and soon were transfered to our vosges mountain dwelling for the evening program, which involved a magician and more delicious food. the days are always packed with activities whenever the twinning town visits take place. i don't have to mention that you would fall asleep very soon after you found your bed late at night :P
Comments