Maisons du 15e siècle
MonumentHidden Treasure
In the heart of Tours, these three 15th-century Gothic houses reveal interior courtyards, timber-framed galleries and a sumptuous wrought-iron balcony - an intact fragment of the medieval city.
© Wikimedia Commons
History
Nestling in the old town of Tours, in the rue de la Scellerie or just a stone's throw from the Place Plumereau, these three 15th-century houses are one of the few complete examples of medieval urban housing in Touraine. Three storeys high over a ground floor, they form a coherent whole where late Gothic civil architecture can still be seen with striking clarity, sheltered from the massive transformations that have reconfigured so many other historic districts. What makes this group of houses truly unique is the way the space is organised around a communal courtyard, a veritable microcosm of medieval bourgeois life. To the east, a staircase with straight banisters and galleries elegantly structures the vertical circulation; to the west, a wing with a timber-framed gallery is reminiscent of the corbelled structures typical of 15th-century Touraine; to the south, a small main building closes the picture, creating a sense of privacy away from the hustle and bustle of the street. House number 23 is undoubtedly the centrepiece of the ensemble. Its ground-floor door, topped with a bracket and finial, illustrates the ornamental vocabulary of the flamboyant Gothic style at its height. As for the eighteenth-century wrought-iron balcony that adorns its façade, it bears witness to a fascinating temporal stratification: the centuries are superimposed without contradicting each other, and the modern commerce of the Grand Siècle simply rested on the medieval framework without obliterating it. For the attentive visitor, these houses offer a lesson in living architecture. There is no museum-like setting here: the buildings have continued to live, to be inhabited, to bear the traces of each generation. The patina of the stonework, the worn millwork, the carved woodwork in the galleries - everything invites you to slow down and read the space as you would a palimpsest. Tours, capital of the Loire Valley and a royal city par excellence, is not just about its châteaux; it is also about the discreet houses that have sheltered craftsmen, merchants and middle-class citizens over the centuries.
Architecture
The architecture of these three houses is late civil Gothic, common in Loire towns in the second half of the 15th century. Three storeys high over a ground floor, their generous elevation testifies to the prosperity of their first occupants. Tufa stone - the region's king material, easy to cut and a beautiful cream colour - is most likely the dominant material used for the masonry structures, while chestnut timber frames form the galleries and corbels. The most striking ornamental feature is the ground-floor door of house number 23, crowned with a bracket and finial. This typically flamboyant Gothic vocabulary - the inverted ogee brace, the plant hooks that decorate the jambs and the finial that crowns the top - places the building in the tradition of the great urban residences of the late Middle Ages. The eighteenth-century wrought-iron balcony sign on the same façade creates a striking stylistic dialogue between two centuries of craftsmanship. The layout of the communal courtyard is the real architectural signature of the complex: the straight-rail staircase with galleries to the east, the wing with a timber-framed gallery to the west and the small main building to the south form a complete spatial arrangement that links circulation, light and use in a perfectly controlled way. This U-shaped layout around an enclosed courtyard prefigures the large courtyards of Renaissance town houses, while remaining deeply rooted in the spatial logic of the late Gothic period.
Related Figures
Louis XI, roi de France résidant régulièrement à Tours, dont la présence stimula l'essor urbain et commercial de la cité au XVe siècleMarchands et bourgeois tourangeaux du XVe siècle, commanditaires vraisemblables de ces maisons, enrichis par le commerce des draps et des épicesArtisans charpentiers tourangeaux du XVe siècle, maîtres des techniques de galeries en encorbellement caractéristiques de la régionFerronnier d'art du XVIIIe siècle, auteur du balcon-enseigne en fer forgé de la maison numéro 23André Malraux, ministre des Affaires culturelles, dont la loi de 1962 sur les secteurs sauvegardés renforça la protection du Vieux-Tours dont ces maisons font partie
