- En savoir plus
- Les auteurs
- 23 x 28.5 cm
- 168 pages
- 150 black and white and color illustrations
- ISBN: 978-2-9092-8312-8
- Text in French only
Like many other resorts, Le Touquet was born from the craze for sea bathing in the mid-19th century. In 1837, Alphonse Daloz, a Parisian notary, acquired 1,600 hectares of dunes at the mouth of the Canche. He planted oyats and maritime pines, following the example of the newly created Landes. A few years later, John Whitley, an English businessman seduced by this grandiose desert between sea and forest, five hours from London and three hours from Paris, bought the Daloz estate and decided to make it a vacation spot for his compatriots. The interwar period marked the transition from the seaside resort to a more worldly city, dedicated to sport and elegance. This evolution can be seen in the architectural diversity of the villas with fanciful names, which range from neo-Gothic to neoclassicism: an eclecticism that is tempered by the strong imprint of the architect Louis Quételart, inventor of the “modern Touquettois style”, for whom the historical, traditional or vernacular reference is the means of expressing unbroken modernity.