Château de Goubelet ou Goblet
CastleHidden Treasure
Originally a Provençal farmhouse in the 16th century, Château de Goubelet became an elegant classical southern residence in 1783, retaining its old wings and mysterious spiral staircase.
History
On the outskirts of Tarascon, in a Provence bathed in light and steeped in history, Château de Goubelet - sometimes spelt Goblet - embodies a rare architectural trajectory: that of a simple farmhouse that, over the generations and the ambitions of its owners, has risen to the rank of stately home. This metamorphosis, accomplished over two centuries, has given the château a hybrid personality, at once rigorous in its classical forms and deeply rooted in the building traditions of the Midi. What makes Château de Goubelet truly unique is the way in which two building eras coexist. On the one hand, there is the symmetrical, well-ordered 18th-century façade, with its central forecourt asserting the owner's dignity; on the other, two older wings that retain their lower ground levels, silent witnesses to the estate's rustic origins. This dialogue between the austerity of the Renaissance farmhouse and the elegance of late Classicism makes the château a living document of the evolution of aristocratic taste in Provence. The suspended spiral staircase serving the upper floors of the old wings is one of the site's architectural treasures. This type of staircase, inherited from medieval and Renaissance craftsmen, requires considerable technical mastery - its steps fit into the central core without any intermediate support, creating an almost paradoxical lightness in the stone. It is reminiscent of the great achievements of southern Gothic architecture, and testifies to the quality of the local craftsmen who worked on this project. Although the interiors are now in an advanced state of disrepair, they are nonetheless a moving sight for the discerning visitor. The remnants of the decoration, the proportions of the volumes and the logical layout of the spaces recreate the atmosphere of a residence belonging to the landed nobility of Provence on the eve of the French Revolution. The château was listed as a Historic Monument in 2012, paving the way for future restoration work. The surrounding countryside, typical of the Crau plain and the banks of the Rhône, completes the picture: centuries-old olive trees, fragrant garrigue and the bright Provencal sky form a natural setting that has hardly changed since the first owners laid the foundations of what was then just a modest farmhouse.
Architecture
Château de Goubelet is a particularly instructive example of what architectural historians refer to as the "southern classical tradition": a synthesis between the organizing principles of French classicism - symmetry, hierarchy of facades, compositional clarity - and the constraints and constructional habits inherited from the Provencal buildings of previous centuries. The main facade, built in 1783, is the clearest expression of this: a slightly projecting central projection acts as the pivot of the composition, framed by regular bays that give the whole a bourgeois dignity without excessive ostentation. The main staircase, which extends the forecourt towards the courtyard or garden, is a feature of private mansions in Arles and Avignon from the same period. The real architectural originality of the château lies in the preservation of its two older wings, dating from the last quarter of the 16th century. These wings, whose floor levels are lower than those of the central building - an indication of their earlier date and the natural topography of the land - preserve a suspended spiral staircase of great technical quality. This type of spiral staircase, with its ashlar steps set into a central core with no external support, is one of the tour de force of the Provencal art of stereotomy, inherited from the master stonemasons of the late Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Its presence in a building originally described as a mas (farmhouse) bears witness to either a first ambitious campaign of work in the 16th century, or the reuse of elements from an earlier building. The materials used are probably those of traditional Provencal construction: limestone extracted from local quarries in the Arles and Crau regions, lime rendering and canal tiles for the roofs. The interior, now in a state of serious disrepair, nonetheless retains the volumes of a spatial organisation typical of homes built at the end of the Ancien Régime: a succession of reception rooms, kitchens in the basement or service wing, bedrooms upstairs served by the main and secondary staircases.
Related Figures
Propriétaire inconnu ayant acquis le domaine en 1575, initiateur de la transformation du mas en demeure notableCommanditaire de 1783, maître d'ouvrage de la transformation classique du château, figure de la noblesse ou bourgeoisie provençale de l'Ancien RégimeArchitecte ou maître maçon provençal (anonyme), auteur du projet de 1783, probablement formé dans l'école arlésienne ou avignonnaiseMaître tailleur de pierre (anonyme, XVIe siècle), auteur de l'escalier suspendu en vis des ailes anciennes
