The Messagier Mill – Jean-Louis Véret in Lougres

On 13 July 1962, for the inauguration of his mill—which had been converted by the architect Jean-Louis Véret, a founding member of the Atelier de Montrouge—the painter Jean Messagier acted as master of ceremonies and organised eight days of non-stop festivities. With activities ranging from archery and a hunting horn concert to a football match, it provided the occasion for a memorable gathering of politicians, fashionable Parisian artists and residents of the surrounding villages.

Since 1958, the painter Jean Messagier and his wife, the ceramicist Marcelle Baumann, had been working on the project, forging a sincere friendship with the architect – a figure of French modernism, close to Le Corbusier. The mill thus became the setting for an architectural adventure where art and technique intersected. After numerous sketches, the result combines two curved roofs floating on mushroom-shaped slab columns, defining interiors that interact with the landscape of the Doubs.

‘The mill wasn’t chosen; it simply appeared before us,’ Jean Messagier liked to say.

Drawing on family archives, sketches, correspondence and photographs, Christelle Lecoeur and Cyril Brulé piece together the genesis of this project. They reveal how this place, both studio and home, has become a living testament – to a family history of artists and to an era when architecture was envisioned in harmony with nature, creativity and life.