Baraque de type canadien implantée dans la cité de l'habitat provisoire de Soye
MonumentHidden Treasure
Baraque de type canadien implantée dans la cité de l'habitat provisoire de Soye, located in Ploemeur (Département 56), is a modern edifice built in the 19th-20th centuries. The monument is currently closed to visitors.
Key facts
- Type
- autre
- Period
- Modern (19th-20th century)
- Location
- Ploemeur, Département 56, Bretagne
- Visit
- Closed to visitors
- GPS
- 47.7424, -3.4111
- Mérimée Reference
- PA56000089
A rare vestige of the post-war era, this Canadian barrack in the temporary housing estate of Soye in Ploemeur embodies the working-class and social memory of Brittany's reconstruction in the 1950s.
History
In the heart of Ploemeur, in Brittany's Morbihan region, the Soye temporary housing estate is one of the last architectural witnesses to the reconstruction period that followed the Second World War in France. Among its buildings, the Canadian-style barrack, which will be classified as a historic monument in 2019, stands out as an absolutely singular heritage object: where castles and cathedrals are usually protected, here it's a modest wooden structure that has attained the dignity of national heritage. This type of construction, imported from Canada and the United States as part of reconstruction aid programmes, represents an emergency solution that has become permanent. Assembled in just a few days by site teams, these prefabricated barracks were a response to an unprecedented housing crisis in France between 1945 and 1955. In Ploemeur, as in many coastal and industrial towns in Brittany, they housed displaced families, dockyard workers and port workers linked to the activity in Lorient, the neighbouring town massively destroyed by the Allied bombing raids in 1943. A visit to this barracks is an experience that goes against the grain of traditional heritage tourism. It invites us to meditate on ordinary daily life, on the resilience of modest families and on the ability of a community to transform an emergency into a lasting community. The interior is deliberately uncluttered, reflecting a functional organisation based on the bare essentials, while the exterior reveals the technical details of a North American construction know-how that is little represented in Europe. The setting of the Soye housing estate adds a valuable sociological dimension: the site as a whole forms a fragment of a working-class town suspended in time, where the spaces between the barracks, the private gardens and the rough urban grid tell the story of a form of makeshift urban planning that has become, through the force of time, an inhabited landscape steeped in human history.
Architecture
The Canadian-style shack is a prefabricated wood-frame construction, typical of North American emergency housing programmes distributed in Western Europe after 1945. It has a rectangular floor plan, generally of small dimensions - between 40 and 60 square metres of living space - organised around a central corridor distributing two to four rooms: a kitchen, one or two bedrooms and a multi-purpose living area. The slightly sloping gable roof is covered in corrugated sheeting or galvanised sheeting, materials that contribute to the immediately recognisable visual identity of these buildings. The walls are clad in wooden planks nailed to a light frame, with rudimentary internal insulation consisting of mineral wool or compressed fibreboard. The joinery - small-paned windows and painted wooden entrance doors - is simple and functional, with no superfluous ornamentation. Nevertheless, a few details betray the North American origin of the model: the modular design, the standardisation of the construction elements and the assembly system using prefabricated metal connectors. The architectural interest of the hut lies less in its formal sophistication than in its status as a technical and social document. It illustrates a precise moment in the history of industrialised construction in France, before the major collective housing programmes of the 1960s. Its state of preservation makes it possible to observe in situ the construction techniques of a bygone era, making it a veritable three-dimensional artefact for building historians.
Related Figures
Raoul Dautry — premier ministre de la Reconstruction et de l'Urbanisme (1944-1946), initiateur des politiques d'habitat provisoireEugène Claudius-Petit — ministre de la Reconstruction (1948-1953), promoteur du logement social et de la modernisation urbaineFamilles ouvrières de Lorient — habitantes fondatrices de la cité de Soye, dont les témoignages constituent la mémoire vive du siteMilitants associatifs de Ploemeur — acteurs de la sauvegarde et de la reconnaissance patrimoniale de la cité dans les années 2000-2010
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Frequently Asked Questions
Where is Baraque de type canadien implantée dans la cité de l'habitat provisoire de Soye located?
Baraque de type canadien implantée dans la cité de l'habitat provisoire de Soye is located in Ploemeur, Département 56 department, Bretagne region, France.
When was Baraque de type canadien implantée dans la cité de l'habitat provisoire de Soye built?
Baraque de type canadien implantée dans la cité de l'habitat provisoire de Soye dates back to a period built in the modern era (19th-20th century).
Is Baraque de type canadien implantée dans la cité de l'habitat provisoire de Soye open to visitors?
Baraque de type canadien implantée dans la cité de l'habitat provisoire de Soye is currently closed to visitors.