ReportageThe promoter Gérard Brémond, boss of the Pierre & Vacances group, preferred Jean Nouvel to Jacques Labro, the historic architect of the alpine resort. Defenders of local heritage are rising up.
“You will see, the bottom of Avoriaz, it is a neglected area, polluted with used oil, disgusting”, we had been warned. We were also entitled, by others, to this idyllic vision: “It’s the gateway to the resort by the cable car, the impression of arriving on an island, the most beautiful view in an eminently public place. ” And the location of a future hotel whose construction divides the All-Avoriaz, or rather the All-Paris of Avoriaz, since this Haute-Savoyard resort seems to be managed as much from the capital as from the town of Morzine (2,700 inhabitants), in below.
To take the measure of the matter, it is necessary to underline the particularity of this immense station (18,000 beds) inherited from the snow plan of the end of the 1960s. The historic owners of apartments speak of it as a white paradise, a Eden at an altitude of 1,800 meters whose buildings deserve to be classified, “Whether we like it or not”. A bubble out of time, because designed without cars in the era of all-diesel and in an architecture with broken lines, without the slightest right angle.
A yellowed photo, showing this iconic architecture and a family transported in a horse-drawn carriage on the snowy road, sits in front of the entrance to the Paris office by Gérard Brémond, founder of the Pierre & Vacances group and of the resort. Critics converge on this promoter today: the “historic” architect, Jacques Labro, but also the association of co-owners, guardians of the Avoriaz temple, reproach him for wanting to break this harmony. The object of the offense? A straight-line hotel located in the lower part of the resort. The design was entrusted to the famous architect Jean Nouvel. The Téléphérik Hotel, that’s its name, will have 153 rooms, over a floor space of 10,000 square meters. Work begins in spring 2022, opening scheduled for December 2023.
“Battles of Hernani”
In response to criticism, the developer maintains that these famous “lines” – the heart of the dispute – will be barely visible from Morzine, because the building will be embedded in the cliff. From Avoriaz, overhanging, they will not appear any more: only the roof terrace will emerge from the ground. A dozen residents are not convinced by these explanations: they have lodged an appeal against the building permit and threaten to attack it on the basis of technical elements. Above all, they hope to get the view they enjoy today back and are also calling for a new design for the rear of the building, which they describe as a “Supermarket parking lot”.
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