Guided tour of the built and landscaped heritage of the imperial domain of Solférino

Name: Paseo comentado del patrimonio construido y paisajístico del dominio imperial de Solférino
Start: 2023-09-16T16:00:00+02:00
End: 2023-09-16T17:30:00+02:00
Location: Domaine impérial de Solférino

European Heritage Days 2023

Sábado 16 septiembre 2023, 16:00Passed

Plan général du domaine impérial de Solférino, 1861, © AD40, 1 M 35.

In the heart of the Landes forest, the imperial domain of Solferino surprises by the organization of its buildings and the rigor of its composition. Real utopia created by the Second Empire, thanks to land acquired from seven surrounding municipalities, the imperial domain of Solferino is thought of as a resolutely modern economic model. Equipped with public buildings, experimental imperial farms and cottages, the ensemble is also distinguished by the creation of an arboretum and the cultivation of exogenous plants within an orthonormative plot. As you walk along the paths of Solférino, come and discover the landscapes and history of this estate classified as a remarkable heritage site.

About the location

Domaine impérial de Solférino

40210 Solférino

Landes
Nouvelle-Aquitaine

In 1857, in his great dream of regenerating the uninhabited territories of southwestern France, Emperor Napoleon III acquired 7000 ha of the Landes department to create an imperial estate, a sort of ideal city in the image of Henrichemont, Richelieu or Versailles, designed in the 17th century. From 1860, the project comes out of the ground, a regular village (with its church Sainte-Eugénie, its town hall-school, its model farms and its agricultural houses called «cottages») implanted in the center of the domain. It became a commune in 1863 and was named Solferino in memory of the victory of the imperial troops over the Austrians in 1859.