Pavillons de l'octroi
MonumentHidden Treasure
Pavillons de l'octroi, located in Tours (Indre-et-Loire), is a Renaissance château built in the 16th century. The monument is currently closed to visitors.
Key facts
- Type
- autre
- Period
- Renaissance (16th century)
- Location
- Tours, Indre-et-Loire, Centre-Val de Loire
- Visit
- Closed to visitors
- GPS
- 47.4015, 0.6850
- Mérimée Reference
- PA00098262
The stone guardians of the classical Tours, the four octroi pavilions on Place Choiseul have stood guard over the approaches to the great royal bridge since the 18th century, a rare testimony to the urban planning of the Ancien Régime.
© Wikimedia Commons
History
On the threshold of the stone bridge and the majestic Rue Royale, Place Choiseul is one of the most coherent urban landscapes to emerge in Tours in the 18th century. Four symmetrical grant pavilions, once linked by a curved wall forming the backdrop to the semi-circular square, make up a town entrance of rare integrity. Designed as an integral part of the major bridges and causeways project that transformed the crossing of the Loire, they embody the royal administration's desire to order, control and embellish at the same time. What distinguishes these pavilions from ordinary collection posts is their integration into an overall urban project. They are not just modest gatehouses: their architectural layout and echoing arrangement on either side of the monumental axis make them veritable propylaea in the ancient style, marking the symbolic threshold between the city and its great bridge. Each pavilion dialogues with its twin across the roadway, creating a perspective that eighteenth-century travellers readily compared to the triumphal entrances to European capitals. A visit to these pavilions is first and foremost an urban experience. You can appreciate them from the stone bridge, on the way up to the rue Royale, or from the square itself, whose semi-circular plan remains legible despite the disappearance of one of the enclosing walls before 1914. The surviving curved wall restores the idea of this architectural setting and invites us to imagine the majesty of the original composition. The setting is that of a classic Touraine district, where dressed stone, slate roofs and measured proportions set the tone. Although the pavilions have been listed as Historic Monuments since 1951, they blend in remarkably discreetly with the everyday life of the town, making them monuments to be discovered slowly, with the eye trained to read the strata of time in the stone.
Architecture
The four octroi pavilions on Place Choiseul belong to the classical French vocabulary of the 18th century, as disseminated by the Ponts et Chaussées engineers and the architects of the royal administration in the provinces. Square or rectangular in plan, their façades are ordered according to the principles of symmetry and hierarchy typical of neo-classical architecture: bays punctuated by pilasters or buttresses, openings with underlined keystones, low-pitched roofs covered with slate in the Loire tradition. Their arrangement in two symmetrical pairs on either side of the Rue Royale axis creates a propylaean composition reminiscent of ancient city entrances revisited by the architectural culture of the Enlightenment. The curved walls that originally linked the pavilions in pairs were part of this exedra logic, a form borrowed from Roman architecture and reinterpreted in the urban beautification projects of the century. The surviving wall still shows this spatial arrangement and its regular ashlar pattern. The materials used are those of the great Touraine building site of the eighteenth century: white tufa from the region, Anjou slate for the roofing, simple ironwork for the openings. Together with the stone bridge and the Rue Royale, the complex forms a homogeneous architectural sequence, a rare testimony to the urban planning coherence of the great royal works in the provinces under Louis XV and Louis XVI.
Related Figures
Étienne-François de Choiseul (1719-1785) — ministre de Louis XV qui patronne le grand chantier du pont et de la rue Royale, donnant son nom à la placeLouis XV (1710-1774) — souverain sous lequel est décidé et engagé l'ensemble du programme d'aménagement de ToursJean-Michel Serin (1728-1799) — ingénieur des Ponts et Chaussées actif à Tours, associé aux grands travaux de la rue Royale et du pontAnne-Robert-Jacques Turgot (1727-1781) — intendant de Limoges puis contrôleur général, figure des réformes des Lumières liées à la modernisation des infrastructures provincialesLouis XVI (1754-1793) — sous son règne s'achève le dispositif monumental de la place Choiseul et du pont de pierre
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Frequently Asked Questions
Where is Pavillons de l'octroi located?
Pavillons de l'octroi is located in Tours, Indre-et-Loire department, Centre-Val de Loire region, France.
When was Pavillons de l'octroi built?
Pavillons de l'octroi dates back to a period built during the Renaissance (16th century).
Is Pavillons de l'octroi open to visitors?
Pavillons de l'octroi is currently closed to visitors.