Page 28 - Livre Beau Rivage Palace
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Fig. 5                                                  Fig. 6

                                                                                                                                                         half the costs of dredging the harbour, while land to the west   capital’s lack of any real holiday accommodation, the hotels in the
                                                                                                                                                         of the castle was sold to the future property developer Société   town itself were more reliant on passing trade.
                                                                                                                                                         immobilière d’Ouchy (sio),  later to become public property.       The waterfront development was the work of the architect
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                                                                                                                                                         The fact that one of the members of the interim board was also a   Louis Joël, a member of the town council and a future Liberal mayor
                                                                                                                                                         member of the committee appointed to examine the project may   (1867-83). His design geographically separated commercial
                                                                                                                                                         well have influenced the decision. The agreement with the town   activities and tourist facilities. To the west of the castle he created a
                                                                                                                                                         authorities was ratified by the municipal council a fortnight later.  commercial dock. Close by, he intended in due course to develop
                                                                                                                                                         sio undertook to complete the planned improvements within   an industrial estate in the area where there was already a gasworks,
                                                                                                                                                         three years and the city agreed to reimburse the costs in annual   built in 1848, as well as a railway workshop and a boat builder. To
                                                                                                                                                         instalments payable over five years. The elected members were   the east, he built a promenade around the harbour basin which
                                                                                                                                                         obviously pleased that the long-awaited work which, had it been   was to be dredged. Marking the boundary between the two
                                                                                                                                                         publicly funded, could only have been done in stages, would soon   different worlds was the castle, which Joël, unlike his some of his
                                                                                                                                                         be started and completed.                               contemporaries, believed it essential to preserve.  ‘This extremely
                                                                                                                                                             Under the presidency of Édouard Dapples, a former Mayor   picturesque tower is an adornment for the village, a point of reference, a
                                                                                                                                                         of Lausanne who would later be re-elected,   sio was formally   sort of lighthouse for lost sailors. Indeed, if the castle did not exist one
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                                                                                                                                                         established July 1857. The company’s aims were as follows: ‘To   would have to invent it’ (fig. 4).  Without ‘any real hope in the near
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                                                                                                                                                         build to the west of the present jetty of Ouchy harbour a quay extending   future of seeing Ouchy become a little Eden’,  he believed that the
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                                                                                                                                                         in front of the land belonging to the castle, the village and the gasometer   construction scheme would have a beneficial effect on the village
                                                                                                                                                         as far as the Bellerive estate, thus creating along the lake an additional   where ‘old buildings which barely harmonise with the overall effect will
                                                                                                                                                         space of several thousand perches [1 perch = approximately 5 metres],  naturally have to be repaired, rebuilt and realigned, and new buildings
                                                                                                                                                         to transfer to this space and the land behind it all the warehouses and   erected on the plots left vacant in accordance with a master plan’. 15
                                                                                                                                                         sheds which currently occupy the space to the east of the harbour and      The work along the shore was carried out between 1857
                                                                                                                                                         which clutter up the approach to the harbour itself, the limits of which will   and 1859. The Beau-Rivage Palace opened in March 1861, when
                                                                                                                                                         be redrawn and the basin deepened by a full-scale dredging operation. To   planting the gardens along the lakeside promenade was well under
                                                                                                                                                         demolish the customs house and adjacent sheds and clear the site to create a   way. That year, a lido was created to the east of the hotel. At the
                                                                                                                                                         public promenade which, thanks to its location and its length and breadth   centre of the bathing area was a chalet constructed on piles and
                                                                                                                                                         will, if appropriately designed and adorned, unquestionably be the finest   connected to the shore by a gangway. There were two enclosed
                                                                                                                                                         promenade along the entire shore of the lake.’          pools, one for men, the other for women (fig. 5).
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                                                                                                                                                             In addition to these public works,  sio embarked on a
                                                                                                                                                         commercial enterprise in the form of a first-class hotel to be built   CREATING THE TOURIST INFRASTRUCTURE
                                                                                                                                                         on the eastern side of the village. The second project was a direct      In 1877, the hotel and its surroundings became much more
                                                                                                                                                         result of the first since the hotel ‘would only attract travellers if it were   accessible with the advent of the Lausanne-Ouchy funicular, which
                                                                                                                                                         surrounded by pleasant places to walk and quays planted with trees’.    was directly linked to the railway station. The station had grown
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                                                                                                                                                         While sio took advantage of the increasing popularity of the Lake   considerably with the introduction of services to the Valais, Berne,
                                                                                                                                                         Geneva region among foreign travellers, the rapid development of   and La Broye and finally to Paris. From the outset, the funicular
                                                                                                                                                         the railway – the station opened in May 1856 – and the Vaudois   was designed to carry both passengers and goods arriving at Ouchy

          Fig. 4                                                                                                                                         Mme Roland-Krieg, Public bathing pools, otherwise known as the Rochat Pools.   The landing stage in front of the Hôtel Beau-Rivage. Photograph, 1866.
          The village of Ouchy. Present state of the village and proposed improvements.                                                                  Pencil drawing, undated, signed on the back.
          Architect Louis Joël’s 1857 development plan for the Société Immobilière d'Ouchy.


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