Uvarium

English translation

The text above is the record as published by the Ministère de la Culture, in French. The English below is a machine translation made by TreeAlive, not by the Ministère de la Culture; it has not been checked by a person. Where the two differ, the original is the record. Report a translation error: privacy@treealive.com

History

From 1925 onwards, when the production of chasselas grapes abounded, a Moissac doctor, Doctor Armand Rouanet, wished to make his town a grape city (from the Latin uva, grape) of international reputation, grape cures being very much in vogue. After the flood of March 1930 which destroyed a large part of the town of Moissac, the mayor, Roger Delthil, supported this project but the municipality, which already had to finance the reconstruction of the town, could not alone carry out all the infrastructure work. It associated itself with the company Guiraudie and Auffève, whose directors created in October 1932 the Real Estate and Grape Company of Moissac (SIUM). By contract dated 1 May 1933, the SIUM undertakes to build a hotel, a casino, tennis courts as well as a factory for the manufacture of grape juice and conservation of fruit, all in accordance with the town planning scheme drawn up in 1930 by departmental architects Joseph Thillet and Germain Olivier with a view to making Moissac a grape-cure station. In exchange, the town, which brings no funds to the company, undertakes to continue the implementation of the town planning scheme and cedes land to the SIUM as well as the use of the uvarium "built by it at the end of the Promenade du Moulin". The building, which appears in the town planning scheme drawn up by Joseph Thillet in 1931, could have been designed by the latter, as well as other contemporary Moissac developments (hotel, Hall of Paris). The station opens on 20 August 1933 and the uvarium is inaugurated on Sunday 10 September 1933; the Valencian painter Édouard Domergue-Lagarde carries out the external and internal decoration, completed in 1934 (date given). On 2 July 1935, the law officially establishing Grape-cure Stations is promulgated and the presidential decree of 7 August 1936 makes Moissac the first therapeutic grape-cure station recognised by the State. Attendance was not, however, what was expected, hindered by the economic crisis which preceded the second world war. In 1946, the town attempts to pursue its grape-cure station project, but the uvarium is gradually neglected and becomes a place of entertainment in the 1960s; it today houses a restaurant. The pergolas were built in 1936-1937 following the felling of the elm trees of the Promenade du Moulin in 1936, replaced by plane trees between 1937 and 1940. In the early 1940s, fencing was put in place in order to privatise the site.