Tour Pey-Berland
FortressHidden Gem
Tour Pey-Berland, located in Bordeaux (Gironde), is a Renaissance château built in the 16th century. The monument is currently closed to visitors.
Key facts
- Type
- Fort
- Period
- Renaissance (16th century)
- Location
- Bordeaux, Gironde, Nouvelle-Aquitaine
- Visit
- Closed to visitors
- GPS
- 44.8376, -0.5766
- Mérimée Reference
- PA00083480
A stone sentinel towering above the cathédrale Saint-André, the tour Pey-Berland stands as one of the most audacious Gothic bell towers of the fifteenth century, crowned by a gilded statue of the Virgin who has watched over Bordeaux for centuries.
History
Rising from the heart of Bordeaux like a stone needle defying the Aquitaine sky, the Tour Pey-Berland stands as one of the most singular jewels in the urban heritage of the Gironde. Detached from the Cathédrale Saint-André whose bell tower it nonetheless serves, it soars to some 50 metres in height, engaged in a breathtaking architectural dialogue with the Gothic chevet that adjoins it without ever touching it — a configuration of extraordinary rarity in France, one that lends the tower a silhouette instantly and unmistakably its own. What renders the tower truly unique is the layering of its architectural registers: a severe and commanding base, as much defensive in purpose as symbolic, which gradually lightens towards an octagonal spire clad in finely sculpted limestone. At its summit reigns Notre-Dame d'Aquitaine, a gilded bronze statue added in the nineteenth century, whose radiance catches the raking light of sunsets over the Garonne and sets summer evenings aglow. To climb the 231 or so steps of the interior spiral staircase is an experience as physical as it is sensory: arrow slits and openings give way, one by one, to a panorama that sweeps across the Roman-tiled rooftops, the meandering curves of the Garonne and, on clear days, the slopes of the Entre-deux-Mers. Few French cities offer a vantage point so intimately woven into the fabric of their streets and the depth of their collective memory. The surrounding setting — the Place Pey-Berland, lined with the institutions of the Republic, the Hôtel de Ville and the Palais de Justice — provides an ideal stage upon which to behold the tower in all its vertical ambition. At dusk, when the pale golden stone ignites beneath the light of the Gironde, the monument imparts that singular shiver particular to the greatest Gothic architecture: the shiver of human aspiration reaching towards the absolute.
Architecture
Tour Pey-Berland rises in three distinct registers of late Gothic elevation, characteristic of fifteenth-century southern French Gothic. Its square, massive base, pierced by a pointed-arch doorway of restrained moulding, climbs for roughly two-thirds of the total height before giving way to an octagonal body that carries the spire. This transition from square to octagonal plan, punctuated by finely wrought pinnacles and gables, stands as one of the building's most remarkable technical and aesthetic achievements. The whole is built in calcaire à astéries, the blonde limestone native to the Bordeaux region, which lends the tower its singular golden hue beneath the particular light of the south-west. The twin bays and lancet windows adorning the upper registers speak to a supremely assured Gothic craftsmanship, in which verticality is emphasised by slender buttresses and discreet floral carving in the tradition of the fifteenth-century Bordelais ateliers. The octagonal spire, soaring and delicately open-worked, reaches approximately fifty metres and is crowned by the gilded bronze statue of Notre-Dame d'Aquitaine — four metres and fifteen centimetres tall — added in 1863. Within, a spiral staircase of 231 stone steps, hewn from the solid mass, winds about the central newel, affording at each landing a series of embrasures through which one may observe the tower's internal architecture and apprehend the techniques of medieval construction — the shuttering, the regular courses, the lime-mortar joints — all remaining remarkably legible despite the passage of centuries.
Related Figures
Pierre Berland (Pey Berland) — archevêque de Bordeaux (1430-1456), commanditaire et principal financeur de la tourVital-Gabriel Greslan — sculpteur bordelais du XIXe siècle, auteur de la statue de Notre-Dame d'Aquitaine (1863)Prosper Mérimée — inspecteur général des Monuments Historiques, artisan du classement MH de 1862Charles VII — roi de France dont le règne voit la reconquête de Bordeaux (1453) et le contexte de la constructionEugène Viollet-le-Duc — théoricien de la restauration gothique au XIXe siècle, influençant les travaux de consolidation de la flèche
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Frequently Asked Questions
Where is Tour Pey-Berland located?
Tour Pey-Berland is located in Bordeaux, Gironde department, Nouvelle-Aquitaine region, France.
When was Tour Pey-Berland built?
Tour Pey-Berland dates back to a period built during the Renaissance (16th century).
Is Tour Pey-Berland open to visitors?
Tour Pey-Berland is currently closed to visitors.