The fisherman's hut and the arcachonnaises, magnificent residences of the Belle Époque, have shaped the coastline of the Arcachon basin, from the Ville d'Hiver d'Arcachon to the tip of Cap Ferret. Following in the footsteps of Art Deco architects such as Roger-Henri Expert and Le Corbusier, a new generation of designers from the early 1950s went on to leave their mark, sometimes modernist, sometimes brutalist, on the Basin's landscape, with a series of villas and houses that, alongside the rare collective dwellings, gave it its distinctive present-day appearance. Concerned to preserve the natural setting, the architects have competed in ingenuity to fit into this grandiose and fragile territory. Among them, the Salier-Courtois-Lajus-Sadirac team from Bordeaux, Raphaëlle and Jacques Hondelatte and Anne Lacaton and Jean-Philippe Vassal (Pritzker 2021), have invented an art of living here, with architecture that respects the environment, which has helped to make this unique natural site between the dunes, the pine forest and the ocean better known and loved.


Text in French.