Craft

The place

Everything begins on site: a visit, measurements, an exact plan, and the architect’s drawings when they exist. At Les Roches, in Le Lavandou, the first visit took place in January, the measurements in March. At Morzine, the swimming stadium was still under construction: the study started from the architect’s plans.

The drawing

The drawing comes from the place. At the Hôtel Royal in Évian, it was born of the building itself, after a long time spent with Art Nouveau and Art Deco. At the Royal Champagne, the building’s concrete canopy and the edge of the main terrace look parallel. They are not: the architect probably wanted to lend a very long building its perspective. A symmetrical composition was impossible there. It took drawing after drawing and, for the first time on this scale, sails tied to one another across the whole terrace. This way of joining the sails has remained. An American client, beneath the newly installed sails: "They are not sails; it is a living painting."

Supports

The sails take their support from the building, most often in its walls; each building says where and how. At the Royal Champagne, in poured concrete, the waterproofing was pierced, working with a waterproofing contractor, and the mast feet set on raised pads, clear of the water lying on the main terrace. At Les Roches, the façade is nothing but glass: the composition is fixed at very few points. At the Hôtel de Crillon in Paris, a project carried out with the architecture practice Affine Design, the roof terrace was not to be pierced. The building is old: dressed stone, timber beams, plaster infill, and a bitumen waterproofing membrane. The paving slabs on pedestals were lifted; under each mast, a concrete base of about one square metre was poured into the available depth, seven or eight centimetres between the membrane and the top of the slabs; the stays are anchored back to the building. The work stood this way for several years.

Wind

In Champagne, the wind does not have the violence of a mistral, which blows itself out in a day or two; it lasts, and thunderstorms bring their gusts. The sails work almost without pause. On the Gulf of Saint-Tropez, the east wind is sometimes very violent: for a beach club, thirty-five sails, on masts drawn for the place and held by stays. In Ramatuelle, masts of robinia are angled to the prevailing winds.

Trees

At Le 25bis, in Épernay, trees pass through the sails: the plan starts from their positions. In Ramatuelle, every tree stays in place; the sails go around it or through it, and the masts are set without harming what grows. Under tall pines, nothing is fixed to the trees, because of the needles and the resin.

Masts

They are drawn for each place. In Évian, masts of a new design, very strong. At Les Roches, masts that recall, in stylised form, the funnels of ocean liners from the 1910s and 1920s: the building already speaks to the sea. In Morzine, several steel rods meet at the top and spread towards the ground, like the wooden trestles that once carried water to the mills; in the mountains, their foundations are built to withstand frost. At La Rouillère, in Gassin, wooden masts among the vines.

The study, day and night

Before anything is made, a study shows the work in its place, in sunlight and then in the evening, in images and sometimes on film. In Morzine it can be read in two ways: from the pool, the swimmer is beneath a sky of ink painted by hand; from the footbridge, thirty metres above, the eight sails become two wheels again. At the Hôtel Royal in Évian, the light comes from within, and each sail becomes a lantern.

Making, installing, and letting winter pass

Once the drawing is chosen, the sails are made in partner workshops, then installed in the warm season by Adrien Audry and those who help him. In Évian, the Hôtel Royal’s work was taken down in autumn; it returns in spring.

Here and elsewhere

Adrien Audry works with the architect, the landscape architect or the interior practice of each place; a study on its own can also be commissioned. For a place outside France, the work begins from its plans, its photographs and a call; the visit comes once the project goes ahead. Exchanges take place by email or WhatsApp, in French, in English or in the language of the place.

For a place, a question: contact@adrienaudry.fr