The Château de Guédelon, a crazy project launched 28 years ago, but also an example of sustainable construction – rts.ch

Lost between Bourges and Auxerre, in Burgundy, the Château de Guédelon is an atypical monumental work which attracts some 300,000 visitors and visitors each year. This slightly crazy project was born in the late 1980s when a handful of people gathered around an idea: to build a 13th century strong castle.

The first stone was laid in 1987, but no mechanical cranes or shovels, the idea is to highlight medieval know-how and build with materials but also the techniques of the time.

And 28 years later, the building is still not over and the work should last a few more years. But this dimension goes into the background, after the educational and tourist experience of the place. In this experimental archeology project, we do not only build to build, but also to learn.

Learn by observing old techniques

Maryline Martin and one of the co -founders of the medieval site in Guédelon. Questioned Friday in the 7:30 p.m., she describes this titanic project: “The idea is to build to understand, to get into a building situation to find out how we were building a wall, what type of mortar we were going to do, how we were going to set up the charges to put ourselves, from the first stone to the last tile, in a construction situation in the Middle Ages.”

Almost every day from spring to fall, carriers, stone tailors, masons, carpenters, loggers, blacksmiths, tuiliers, carts and other rods set to work to transform and enhance the stone, wood or earth. The approach is also based on errors: if the workers notice an imperfection, they disassemble and start on the right foot.

This building aims to be proof that we can learn a lot by observing the ancients. Indeed, if the site resuscitates the past in a way, it is also a great example of sustainable construction, so much so that several companies active in the construction industry have come on site in recent years to study the techniques used.

A short circuit construction

“Under the pretext of building a strong castle, we also realized that we were very modern, smiles Maryline Martin. We were in ecological habitat, we took in nature exactly what we needed and we transformed it into a strong castle.”

The key word of the Château de Guédelon is the short circuit: the career is located at the foot of the castle, the oak wood comes from the neighboring forest and, above all, lime is baked directly on site.

This process saves a lot of energy in comparison with traditional cement, explains Florian Hémery, a historic referent on the Guédelon site: “It is important to keep these techniques to better preserve our heritage and that it can be preserved for the next decades and for the next hundreds of years that follow. If we forget these techniques, ultimately, our heritage is not going well with future generations.”

This precious heritage and know-how should also inspire our modern constructions more: the building and construction sector is by far the largest greenhouse gas transmitter on the planet, with 37% of global emissions.

Reportage TV: Julien von Red

Web text: Frédéric Boillat