Royal Fortress

The royal fortress of Chinon is not one castle but three, set end to end on a spur above the Vienne: Fort Saint-Georges to the east, the Château du Milieu, and Fort du Coudray to the west. Henry II Plantagenet died there in 1189; it was there that Joan of Arc came to recognise Charles VII in 1429. The site now belongs to the Indre-et-Loire department.

This lighting scheme highlights the enclosure, the curtain walls and the towers overlooking the Vienne and the lower town. The project is composed at the scale of the landscape: the line of the ramparts, the hillside and the quayside frontages are ranked so that they read as one from the far bank.

At this distance, the width of the river erases all detail. What is seen is a line, its length, and what holds it up. The curtain walls therefore receive continuous lighting that carries the whole front without a break, the towers are pitched one step above to punctuate the run, and the hillside is left in shadow so that the fortress appears carried by the rock rather than set upon it. The quayside frontages, warmer and lower, make up the foreground and set the scale.

Carried out for the Indre-et-Loire Departmental Council and SIEIL 37.

Also in Indre-et-Loire: the château of Azay-le-Rideau.