La Cité Oasis by Laurent Kronental and Charly Broyez

The design and construction of La Grande-Motte date back to the Trente Glorieuses, the thirty years of unprecedented economic growth following World War II. During this period, paid holidays gave rise to mass tourism. In order to keep vacationers from turning mainly to Spain and the French Riviera, the French government planned the creation of new seaside resorts.

The project, overseen by DATAR (the Interministerial Delegation for Territorial Development and Regional Attractiveness), was part of a broader mission of urban and touristic planning, symbolically named “Racine” (“Root”). The goal was not only to establish an ideal city but to bring it to life—to anchor inhabitants in this modern paradise, detached from both past and present, with happiness as its only foundation.

Launched in 1963 under the leadership of General de Gaulle, the Racine Mission set out to carry out major infrastructure projects to develop the Mediterranean coastline of Occitanie. Operating from 1963 to 1983, it played a key role in expanding tourism for the working classes, supported by rising living standards and the democratization of the automobile. This vast development led to the creation of eight seaside resorts between the Camargue and the Pyrenees: Port-Camargue at Grau-du-Roi, La Grande-Motte, Cap d’Agde, Gruissan, Port Leucate, Port Barcarès, and Saint-Cyprien.

In 1962, architect Jean Balladur was selected by the State to design a seaside resort ex nihilo. La Grande-Motte would become the defining work of his career. Only two architects before him in the 20th century had undertaken such a challenge: Oscar Niemeyer in Brasília and Le Corbusier in Chandigarh.

Today, La Grande-Motte is home to around 10,000 permanent residents and welcomes between 100,000 and 120,000 tourists during the summer season.

For photographers Laurent Kronental and Charly Broyez, La Grande-Motte emerged as a natural subject, resonating with their artistic paths. Since 2011, Kronental has explored postwar 'new towns' and housing estates, documenting the fading utopian visions of modernist architecture in his acclaimed series 'Souvenir d’un Futur' and 'Les Yeux des Tours'. Broyez, on the other hand, has long focused on abandoned sites—silent witnesses of forgotten histories—capturing their haunting transformation as nature slowly reclaims them, as in his series 'Archi Perdu[e] (2013–2018)'.

When the two artists first visited La Grande-Motte together in 2019, they intended only a brief photographic exploration, working with a single camera for the pleasure of discovery. Yet the city’s bold architecture, with its truncated pyramids inspired by Mayan and Incan civilizations, immediately captivated them. They quickly recognized its extraordinary visual potential—a place where every detail seemed symbolic, balancing concrete and greenery, light and shadow, interior and exterior, masculine and feminine, East and West. What began as a short visit grew into a four-year collaboration, extending until 2023.

Initially criticized in the 1960s and 1970s for its concrete expanses, La Grande-Motte has since revealed itself as a visionary “garden city.” Anticipating ecological concerns ahead of its time, Balladur worked with landscaper Pierre Pillet to design an urban space where Mediterranean vegetation—pines, palms, laurels, tamaris—would flourish decades later, creating lush green spaces that now verge on urban jungles. This striking dialogue between audacious architecture and abundant vegetation produces a dreamlike atmosphere that continues to inspire.

In 2010, La Grande-Motte was awarded the 20th Century Heritage label for its remarkable contemporary architecture. Conceived as a total work of art, the city integrates urban planning, furniture design, and landscaping into one coherent vision. Balladur’s inventive use of modénature—ornamental concrete latticework—adds both aesthetic rhythm and practical benefits: shading apartments, softening winds, and creating sculptural silhouettes reminiscent of animals, waves, sails, or even sunglasses.

For Kronental and Broyez, La Grande-Motte is more than a seaside resort. It is a living utopia—a city of symbols, contrasts, and imagination—that invites viewers to dream and to see architecture not as static structure, but as poetic narrative.

Through La Cité Oasis, Kronental and Broyez sought to expand this narrative by retracing the broader history of La Grande-Motte and its surrounding landscapes. When the town was first conceived, the Languedoc coast was still largely marshland, sparsely inhabited, and plagued by mosquitoes. Just beyond the resort’s pyramids, the marshes, huts, and traditions of the Pays de l’Or painted a very different picture of life. Here, two contrasting ways of inhabiting the land coexist: La Grande-Motte as a realized utopia, a summer paradise built as an architectural ideal, and, only a few kilometers away, humble huts assembled from salvaged materials—symbols of human ingenuity, frugality, and an intimate bond with the earth. Once used as makeshift shelters for fishermen and hunters, these cabins gradually evolved into seasonal or even permanent homes, reflecting shifting aspirations and ways of life. By bringing these two worlds into dialogue—modernist ambition and vernacular resilience—the artists invite us to reflect on the transformations of this region, our relationship to past and present, and the enduring tension between utopia and reality.

Laurent Kronental

He lives and works in Paris (France). Self-taught photographer, he discovers photography in China during a stay of several months in Beijing. He has been captivated by the big metropolises there and by the variety of their architectures, their inhabitants, the way they tame the space and their personal stories. He has developed from 2011 to 2015 his first artistic series, "Souvenir d'un Futur", on the elderly living in the large estates of the Paris region. The photographer intends to question us on the condition of seniors in these places in highlighting a sometimes neglected generation. He pushes forward another look on often underestimated suburban areas whose walls seem slowly get older and carry with them the memory of a modernist utopia. "Souvenir d'un Futur" was nominated and distinguished in international photographic prizes. In 2015, this series allowed Laurent Kronental to win "la Bourse du Talent" in the category landscape. He has been then exhibited at the Bibliothèque Nationale de France which has integrated his images into its photographic collection. The photographer has been selected and rewarded in 2016 to the Festival Circulations (Festival of young European photography) where he received the audience award. He was also finalist of the Lens Culture Exposure Awards in the same year. His work has been exhibited in Paris, Moscow, London, Athens, Seoul and published in numerous magazines in France and abroad including The Washington Post, The British Journal of Photography, The Guardian, National Geographic, Wired, CNN, Le Monde, L'Obs.

expand_circle_rightwww.laurentkronental.com

expand_circle_right@laurentkronental

expand_circle_rightAll About Laurent Kronental

Charly Broyez

During his studies of industrial technical design which did not really fascinate him, in 2004, the death of Henri Cartier-Bresson was a revelation. For him, photography is an objective and contemplative art which allows him to photograph people, and the landscape in their very essence.
In 2007, he graduated in Photography at the Gobelins School His personal work focuses on people, the big cities he shapes, and the impact that urban development can have on the countryside. Since 2012, he collaborates with many architects in parallel with his artistic research.

expand_circle_rightwww.charly-broyez.net

expand_circle_right@charly.broyez