Architectures that engage with the temporal landscapes of the Bay of Mont-Saint-Michel

Driven by the narrative of shipwreck - with all the concern for material economy and cultural memory that the trope implies - discrete micro-architectures engage with the granite grain of the island abbey of Mont-Saint-Michel. Carrying with them memories of home, of other island territories, they become architectures of estrangement newly settled in unfamiliar ground.

Weathered by context, these micro-architectures are then offered to the expansive environment of the Bay of Mont-Saint-Michel, a vast estuarine landscape, witness to one of the most extreme tidal ranges in Europe. As catalysts, seeds, they initiate a wider architectural thesis that engages directly with a landscape exposed to the rising sea. Moving from granite outcrop, through estuarial sands, salt marsh and sea dyke into polder fields, constructed in the 19th century and now challenged by the complex discourse of culture and nature, these architectures register a landscape in a constant state of change.