Maison Feuillette et ses dépendances
MonumentHidden Treasure
Maison Feuillette et ses dépendances, located in Montargis (Loiret), 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
- Montargis, Loiret, Centre-Val de Loire
- Visit
- Closed to visitors
- GPS
- 47.9952, 2.7450
- Mérimée Reference
- PA45000054
In Montargis, the Maison Feuillette is one of the rarest examples in the world of a load-bearing straw house still standing, a living laboratory for an ecological architecture born at the beginning of the 20th century.
© Wikimedia Commons / Wikipedia
History
In the heart of the Loiret region, in the town of Montargis nicknamed the "Venice of the Gâtinais", stands a discreet but revolutionary building: the Maison Feuillette. Built in 1921 by Émile Feuillette, a mason by trade convinced by the virtues of straw bales as a structural material, this house embodies a constructive utopia that has become a lasting reality. Today, it is one of the oldest surviving straw-bale framed buildings in the world, giving it exceptional status well beyond France's borders. What makes the Maison Feuillette truly unique is that straw does not play a secondary role as insulation, as it does in many contemporary "ecological" buildings: here, it is the load-bearing material, stacked in bales and plastered, forming thick walls with remarkable thermal inertia. A century after its construction, the walls are still standing, a testament to the visionary skill of its builder. To visit the Maison Feuillette is to enter a space on a human scale, modest and warm, where every detail tells the story of a pioneering approach. The thick walls create an enveloping atmosphere that is both luminous and hushed. The site also includes its outbuildings, which complete the picture of this coherent ensemble designed for domestic self-sufficiency. The Montargais setting adds a pleasant dimension to the experience: the town and its canals, and its castle-museum devoted to ironwork, offer a complementary cultural walking area. The Maison Feuillette is thus part of an unusual heritage trail, far from the beaten track of château tourism, but rich in a rare historical and technical depth.
Architecture
The Maison Feuillette has a simple, sober massing, typical of working-class housing in the Centre region between the wars. The rectangular floor plan, the gable roof covered with flat tiles, the facade plastered with smooth plaster: at first glance, nothing distinguishes this house from an ordinary building of the same period. But that's precisely where its strength lies: behind a perfectly ordinary appearance lies a revolutionary structure. The walls, around 55 to 60 centimetres thick, are made of wheat straw bales stacked flat and covered with a plaster coating applied directly to the straw. This thickness gives the walls exceptional thermal inertia - the house stays cool in summer and warm in winter - and remarkable natural sound insulation. The windows and doors are framed with period wooden joinery, sober and functional. The outbuildings that complete the ensemble follow the same constructive and material logic, forming a coherent corpus that provides an understanding of the organisation of rural working-class housing at the beginning of the 20th century. The site as a whole is an exceptional architectural document on the alternative building practices of the period, and remains a prime object of study for researchers, engineers and architects specialising in eco-construction.
Related Figures
Émile Feuillette — maçon montargois, bâtisseur et concepteur de la maison en 1921, pionnier français de la construction en bottes de paille portanteLes membres du RFCP (Réseau Français de la Construction en Paille) — acteurs majeurs de la redécouverte et de la valorisation du site au tournant des années 2000Les pionniers du Nebraska (fin XIXe siècle) — inventeurs de la technique de construction en bottes de paille portante dont Feuillette s'inspira directement
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Frequently Asked Questions
Where is Maison Feuillette et ses dépendances located?
Maison Feuillette et ses dépendances is located in Montargis, Loiret department, Centre-Val de Loire region, France.
When was Maison Feuillette et ses dépendances built?
Maison Feuillette et ses dépendances dates back to a period built in the modern era (19th-20th century).
Is Maison Feuillette et ses dépendances open to visitors?
Maison Feuillette et ses dépendances is currently closed to visitors.