Monday 8 March 2021

The House,

is a copy,


it is a 1:1 replica of a former inn located in Lavau-Sur-Loire, which currently serves as a creperie (pancake house), the house in the river, known as Lamaison dans la Loire (the House in the Loire), is a three-storey building that at one time was placed on the right bank of the Loire, but strong currents and high tides caused it to capsize, so the edifice was moved to a new location, near the left bank, and to prevent floods or the tide from sweeping the house away ever again, it was bolted down to the rocky bottom of the Loire River, but why? it was actually placed there deliberately by a company that specializes in salvaging wrecks, at the request of a French artist. Today, the House in the Loire is one of the highlights of river cruises on the Loire, photograph Jean-Pierre Dalbera/Flickr, the House in the Loire is the brainchild of  French artist Jean-Luc Courcoult, who created it as part of the 2007 Estuaire Art Exhibition, which invited a number of international artists to create large-scale works inspired by the Loire and its nearby estuary,

although the House in the Loire simply looks strange during the day, because of its unusual location, at night, it becomes downright creepy, especially on nights when the wind blowing through the windows makes itself heard. But the thing that really freaks people out is the light that turns on in one of the rooms, which isn’t really something you’d expect to see in an abandoned house in the middle of a river, In all, 29 artworks are sited along 60km of the Loire from Nantes to Saint-Nazaire and they can all be seen easily, with a special river cruise organised in the summer months, health and safty warning, no swimming to the house!


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