broyez and kronental capture french seaside resort as sci-fi mirage at dawn in ‘la cité oasis’

Charly Broyez and Laurent Kronental capture La Grande Motte

France’s La Grande Motte reveals itself at the break of day, when most seaside resorts lie dormant or disheveled, to Charly Broyez and Laurent Kronental as a mirage made permanent. Through their photographic series La Cité Oasis, the two artists approach the French coastal city as a memory trace, a strangely familiar dream sculpted in concrete, palms, and Mediterranean haze. While their journey began in nearby Arles, home to the celebrated Rencontres de la Photographie festival, it was in La Grande Motte that they found a city so steeped in symbols it felt closer to fiction than place. ‘During our first visit, we were immediately charmed by the unique allure of this city. Its spectacular architecture seemed to transport us to a sci-fi setting,’ share the photographers.

Le Poséidon – Le Couchant de La Grande Motte – 2019 | all images © Charly Broyez and Laurent Kronental

La Cité Oasis features jean balladur’s seaside modern buildings

La Grande Motte, a seaside resort in southern France, was built during the economic boom that followed World War II, an era known in France as Les Trente Glorieuses (the Glorious Thirty). In the 1960s, the French government launched an ambitious plan called Mission Racine to develop the Mediterranean coast of the country, a strategic move to encourage French people to holiday at home instead of heading to Spain.

Mies van der Rohe-trained architect and urban planner Jean Balladur was given the task of designing La Grande Motte from the ground up. His vision was to create a modern paradise by the sea, inspired by everything from Mayan pyramids and Brutalist architecture to the optimistic spirit of modernism. Balladur imagined a city filled with striking geometric buildings, wrapped in lush greenery. ‘Jean Balladur envisioned “rebuilding a paradise, overrun by greenery,”‘ note Paris-based photographers Charly Broyez and Laurent Kronental. The result is a combination of pyramids, loggias, portholes, bishop’s hats, and flowing concrete forms.

Le Temple du Soleil & Les Voiles Blanches – Le Couchant de La Grande Motte – 2020

A Four-Year Study Through Large-Format Film

The artists return to the site repeatedly over four years, documenting its seasons and subtleties with a large-format 4×5″ film camera. ‘Working with large-format film encourages us to anticipate the construction of our images like paintings,’ they comment. Their analog approach becomes a form of attunement – to light, atmosphere, and local rhythms. ‘The film camera is a wonderful tool that demands rigor and patience. It compels us to slow down, make choices, and contemplate,’ the photographers add.  In their dreamlike series, Balladur’s modernist geometry seems to soften under Mediterranean haze, and architecture reveals its lyrical potential.

Le Babylone II – Le Levant de La Grande Motte – 2020

A Blueprint for Climate-Adaptive Cities

Beyond the bold silhouettes of concrete structures, La Cité Oasis draws attention to the ecological foresight of the project. ‘La Grande Motte is a true Oasis City, where immersion in nature and the well-being of its inhabitants are at the heart of its urban philosophy,’ Charly Broyez and Laurent Kronental 

Since it was first developed, more than 50,000 trees have been planted, and nearly 70% of the city is now covered in greenery. Intertwining nature and the built environment, with buildings nestled among trees, arranged in layers, and sheltered from coastal winds, was ahead of its time. In many ways, it predicted the sustainable design ideas that cities around the world are only now beginning to adopt. ‘Jean Balladur said, ”I attempted to compensate for this lack and to substitute symbolic backdrops for historical deficits… The walker or resident then plays hide-and-seek with the mythical underpinnings hidden within,”‘ reflect the photographer duo.

Modénature – Palomino – Le Ponant de La Grande Motte – 2020

Personal Histories Shape a Shared Vision

The photographers see in Balladur’s city a living utopia, inhabited, symbolic, and evolving. For Kronental, who previously explored the poetic decay of postwar housing estates in the Parisian banlieues, La Grande Motte offers a different kind of promise: ‘Photographing the seaside resort of La Grande Motte came naturally as a logical continuation of my work on dreamed cities, realized and inhabited utopias,’ he recalls. For Broyez, whose earlier series explored abandoned structures overtaken by nature, the garden city becomes a site of symbiosis. ‘The geometric forms of the buildings, inspired by both nature and ancient civilizations, integrate into this garden city… giving the city the appearance of an oasis,’ he reveals.

Broyez and Kronental’s series highlights the vision behind La Grande Motte, a city often seen as an architectural curiosity. ‘This series, beyond its aesthetic pursuit, invites us to see La Grande Motte as a living space and a crystallization of sensations… a symbol of a dreamer’s soul,’ the duo state.

Point Zéro II – Quartier du point Zéro de La Grande Motte – 2019 Architect – Jean Balladur

Eglise Saint-Augustin I – Le Levant La Grande Motte – 2019

Boîtes aux lettres Oiseau – Résidence du soleil – Le Couchant de La Grande Motte – 2020

Bâtiment Boule le Levant de La Grande Motte – 2019

Modénature – Le Delta – Le Levant de La Grande Motte – 2021 Architect – Jean Balladur

Le Poséidon – Le Couchant de La Grande Motte – 2019

Hall d’entrée de l’Eden – La Grande Motte – 2019

Fenêtre du Port-Ponant – Le Levant de La Grande Motte – 2020

project info:

name: La Cité Oasis

architect: Jean Balladur

photographers: Charly Broyez | @charly.broyez & Laurent Kronental | @laurentkronental

location: La Grande Motte, Occitanie, France

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