Cistercian Abbey of Fontenay
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| Year | Decision | Comments |
| 1981 | Inscribed | Reasons for inscription |
Reviews
David Berlanda (Italy / Czech Republic):
In our trip to France we have visited the beautiful royal saltworks of Arc-et-Senans, constructed from 1775 to 1779 under Louis XVI on the project of Claude Nicolas Ledoux, since 1771 Inspector General of the saltworks of the Jura, a Royal monopoly, and are the only ones built of the ideal cities planned by him for this industrial complex. It is the first work of the industrial architecture, inspired to the ideal of progress of the Enlightenment, built to permit a rational and hierarchical organization of the work. It was constructed to treat the salt deposits by evaporation: the saline water was brought here from Salins-les-Bains, 21 km away, and channelled by a system of double canalization composed of wooden cylinders and protected by control towers, manned by the Army. The water was evaporated in huge vats heated by fire with wood taken from the forest of Chaux. The buildings functioned until 1895. The city was organized around a factory whose buildings were layed out in a semi-circle around the Pavilion of the Director (with the stables behind it), flanked by two halls, the firing ateliers, where were the vats. The semi-circle was used for lodgings and workshops of the coopers, the blacksmiths, the workers and the ironsmiths, for the guards’ building (the entrance) and for the buildings of the administration of the saltworks and of the administration fiscal. As its symmetrical counterpart, Ledoux had foreseen another semi-circle with a church, an exchange, a hospital, a market, public baths... The revolutionary architecture of the buildings, inspired to the Doric and Tuscan styles use geometric volumes with many inventions, like the ringed columns of the pavilion and of the overseers, a grotto with concretions that evoke melted salt...
Photo: Arc-et-Senans – Pavilion of the Director and firing ateliers of the Royal Saltworks Date posted: March 2006 David Berlanda (Italy / Czech Republic): 
In our trip to France we have visited the Cistercian abbey of Fontenay, founded by St. Bernard in 1119 and built in the small valley of the Engrevies. The church was constructed from 1139 to 1147 by the abbot Guillaume, financed by the bishop of Norwich Ebrard, that is buried here, and consecrated by the Pope Eugene III, a Cistercian and former pupil of St. Bernard. The abbey, restored in 1906, is a Romanesque masterpiece and it’s entirely preserved in this style, apart from the refectory and despite the transformations of the 13th, 15th and 18th centuries and the ruins of the 18th and 19th century. It has a plan in the form of latin cross, a blind nave and a towerless transept and contains only an altar and a statue of Our Lady; near that are the cloister and the chapter house. The architecture is simply and modest and places ashlars side by side with crude rough-cut rubble. There are also many communal buildings within the enclosing wall: the monks’ room, the monks’ dormitory, the council room, the heating room, the abbot’s lodging, the refectory, the infirmary, the guest quarters, the bakery, the hostel, the chapel, the garden, the gate, the dovecote and the forge (12th century), that is one of the oldest industrial buildings in France.
I liked very much this abbey because of its particular and simply architecture. It's worth to be visited if you are in Burgundy but I don't think it justifies the inscription because it isn't the Cistercian abbey neither most complete, nor best known, nor that with the most perfect architecture.
Photo: Fontenay - Cloister of the abbey Date posted: March 2006
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- Cistercian Abbey of Fontenay
- Country: France
- Year: 1981
-
Cultural Heritage
Criteria: (4) - Category: Religious structure, Christian
- Connections:
Cistercian . Dovecotes . Hospitals .
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