Les Franciscaines : A Monastery Reborn

USPA NEWS - When we think of Deauville , certain images immediately come to mind : the American Film Festival held every September , the famous multicolored parasols aligned along the beach , the elegant boardwalk known as ,, Les Planches ``and the unforgettable atmosphere of ,, A Man and a Women ``the film by Claude Lelouch that forever linked the Normandy resort with romance , memory and cinema .Yet beyond these familiar symbols , Deauville conceals another story , quieter but no less remarkable . A short distance from the sea stands Les Franciscaines , a former religious complex whose historic walls have been transformed into an extraordinary cultural centre .It is place where the silence once associated with monastic life has not entirely disappeared .Instead , it has been reinterpreted as the attentive silence of reading , study , artistic contemplation and intellectual discovery .The Franciscan Sisters of Our Lady of Pity left the historic building on 15 December 2011 and moved into a new convent erected on the former kitchen -garden grounds .In June 2015 , the architectural competition was won by the firm Moatti & Rivière .Construction work began in January 2018 .

Les Franciscaines opened to the public in the spring of 2021 .Inside the architecture preserves the memory of the former convent while replacing its functional boundaries with a fluid cultural landscape .The complex is organized around two large squares . The first corresponds to the historic cloister , the second created as an exhibition hall , echoes the geometry of the original courtyard . The former chapel offers another powerful illustration of this intelligent transformation . Its height , vaults , capitals and nineteenth-century stained -glass windows retain the solemn character of the original sacred space . Yet it has been adapted into a flexible auditorium capable of hosting performances , film screenings , projection systems have been carefully integrated , allowing the chapel to change to each occasion without losing its architectural dignity . The Franciscan sisters have left the historic cloister , but its spirit of knowledge and transmission remains , illuminating a cultural sanctuary in the heart of Normandy . Text and pictures by Cristian Amza , director and journalist .