A legendary past
The history of Wales goes back thousands of years, and is reflected in its astonishing architectural heritage. It all begins with the megalithic sites, most of which date back to the Bronze Age. Menhirs - commemorative or cult stones - are often located near tumuli - artificial heaps of earth or stone erected over a burial site - and bear witness to highly elaborate funeral rites. Among the most famous sites, don't miss those in Pembrokeshire or on the Isle of Anglesey. In Pembrokeshire, don't miss the astonishing site of Castell Henllys, literally the castle of the prince's court. Here, archaeology is experimental. On site, you'll discover what life was like in the Iron Age, thanks to the reconstitution of round houses, a granary and prehistoric farms sheltered by fortifications designed in the form of earthworks with banks and ditches. This recreation of an authentic prehistoric fort is fascinating. Now we come to Roman Wales. At the height of its splendor, imperial Rome wanted all its subjugated peoples to benefit from the famous "Roman Peace" and its powerful administrative organization, and this was reflected in its architecture. The provinces were thus equipped with functional buildings (military defences, forts, etc.) and constructions reminiscent of the key features of the great Rome, themselves borrowed from the Greeks (amphitheatres, baths, temples). The town of Carmarthen, known to the Romans as Moridunum, the fort of the sea, is home to the remains of an amphitheatre, a Romano-Celtic temple, a basilica (then a meeting and trading place), baths, a forum and several dwellings. The other major site not to be missed is Caerleon Fortress (derived from the Welsh Caer Legionis, the fortress of the legion). Its Roman name was Isca Silurum. It was built by the Romans to quell Welsh resistance. The site allows visitors to appreciate the Roman genius of the remains of the castrum (a military camp rigorously organized around the general's tent, divided into two main lanes and protected by an enclosure), the amphitheatre (an oval arena seating up to 6,000 people), as well as baths, barracks and temples. Pragmatic, functional architecture serving the glory of the empire. Finally, don't miss Offa's Dyke or Offa's Wall (8th century), which today runs along the border between England and Wales. This great earthen wall, a masterpiece of engineering attributed to the Saxon king Offa, was designed to protect Mercy from Welsh troops. The "Offa's Dyke Path" hiking trail allows you to explore this astonishing piece of Welsh history.
Medieval Splendors
Wales has the highest concentration of castles in the world! Among its hundreds of castles, Chepstow stands out as one of the very first stone fortresses built by the Norman invaders... a real novelty, since until the 11th century, castles were made of wood.
Derived from the Roman castrum, the fortified castle was built on a promontory, ensuring protection and surveillance, and consisted of a fortified enclosure housing a keep and an encampment. It wasn't until the Romanesque period that castles evolved from simple refuges into true dwellings, with a surrounding wall surrounded by a moat and equipped with towers and drawbridges, still housing the keep, but also a dwelling. Romanesque castles are also characterized by their round arches and towers, and chevron decoration (a decorative V-shaped motif used in large numbers to form zigzags.) You can see magnificent examples all over the country, starting with Cardiff Castle. In the 11th century, the castle was nothing more than a motte castrale, a wooden fortification built on a mound of earth. In the 12th century, it was rebuilt in stone and a keep was added, the Norman Keep, which is today the oldest part still standing. Another gem not to be missed is Caerphilly Castle, the largest in Wales and a milestone in military architecture. Protected by an extremely sophisticated system of dams, moats and lakes, Caerphilly Castle was the first to follow a concentric plan consisting of two courtyards, a fortified inner courtyard integrated with a central courtyard. The walls of the inner courtyard dominate those of the central courtyard, creating a concentric defense system consisting of two closed rings of fortifications. The imposing gatehouse-donjon also reinforces this powerful appearance. This original plan was widely adopted in the astonishing castles of the Iron Belt. Their construction is inextricably linked with the English conquest of Wales. Begun by Henry III and continued by his son Edward I, the Iron Belt is a powerful defensive system made up of numerous castles that father and son restored or built ex nihilo in order to control and pacify the region. To build this incredible defense system, Edward I enlisted the services of a mason from the Continent, Master James de Saint-Georges, whom he appointed Crown Architect. The master was involved in the construction or renovation of 12 of the 17 castles in the belt. He developed a defensive architecture based on a concentric plan. Conwy Castle, Harlech Castle, Beaumaris Castle and, of course, the superb Caernafon Castle, a veritable city within a city, with its superb polychrome stone walls, are among the finest castles built by Maître de Saint-Georges. All the castles of the Iron Belt are UNESCO World Heritage Sites.
The Welsh Middle Ages were also religious, as witnessed by the superb ruins of the Cistercian abbeys dotting the country. Preaching a life of asceticism and poverty, the Cistercians imagined an architecture that embodied these values, based on simple lines founded on the relationship between elementary geometric shapes whose juxtaposition creates balance. Rejecting all forms of superfluous decoration, they used light as a means of emphasizing volumes and enlivening spaces. Abandoned or destroyed in the 16th century, impressive ruins of these religious masterpieces have survived, starting with those of Tintern Abbey in the Wye Valley. The ruins of the abbey church reveal its incredible proportions (80 m long by 25 m wide). They are now undergoing extensive restoration. Don't miss Strata Florida Abbey, where fragments of the beautiful west portal still stand, or Whitland Abbey. Alongside these religious centers, numerous cathedrals have also completed the Welsh landscape. Don't miss Bangor Cathedral, with its cruciform floor plan and 40-metre nave, a treasure trove of Romanesque architecture, or the astonishing Saint David's Cathedral, the largest and oldest in the country, and still admired today for the play of light on its grey and pink stone. Finally, don't miss Brecon Cathedral and its incredible torchieres: holes cut into the stone and then filled with oil to light up the whole building, even the darkest corners. Ingenious and poetic.
Industrial prosperity
Industrial architecture is another of Wales' treasures. From the end of the 18th century onwards, the region has been home to impressive works of art, reflecting an astonishing evolution in techniques and know-how. The Cysyllte aqueduct is one of the finest examples. Designed by Thomas Telford in 1795, this 300-meter-long cast-iron structure, supported by a series of 19 masonry piers, allows a canal to pass over the River Dee. Behind the parapet, a towpath was used to pull boats up the canal. In 1801, Telford also built a suspension bridge. As the country entered this period of economic boom and population growth, it also transformed its approach to architecture, which itself became a capitalist activity. New processes and materials were used to create innovative, functional architecture. This was particularly evident during the reign of Queen Victoria. Landscapes were transformed, with a proliferation of forges, workshops, factories and, above all, blast furnaces, modern pyramids inseparable from mining and steelmaking. Workers were also entitled to housing specifically designed for them, whether in rows of terraced houses, as in mining towns, or in small thatched cottages in the first attempts at garden cities, where these modern cottages were never far from a green space, thus eliminating the town/country boundary. In the city, shopping arcades proliferated with their elegant metal decorations and high glass ceilings, transforming dark shopping streets into veritable shafts of light, like Cardiff's Morgan Arcade. Modernity and hygienism were the new driving forces of the age. But Victorian architecture also had another face: that of historicizing eclecticism, a kind of romanticism inspired by the national heritage, which took up past references and mixed them, sometimes a little outrageously. Norman, Romanesque, Gothic and red brick were all used extensively. One of the great architects of this period was William Burges. An architect, Burges was also a craftsman, mastering metallurgy, sculpture and furniture-making, which enabled him to propose works of total art, so to speak. His style draws heavily on medieval codes, especially French Gothic, adding influences from India and Japan. His restoration of Cardiff Castle, with its outburst of polychrome medievalism, is a good example. The Victorian era also saw a proliferation of Jacobin and Tudor revivals (the great styles of the English Renaissance) in imposing mansions such as The Hendre, with its 7 faces of red brick and Bath stone, slate roof, mullioned or stained-glass windows, bow-windows and decorative gargoyles. Like England, Wales also boasts many educational buildings, such as the library and the National Museum in Cardiff. This Victorian style, somewhere between tradition and modernity, was succeeded by the Edwardian style, with its excessive sense of scale and detail, used in public architecture such as Cathays Park or the Cardiff Civic Center, with its superb white marble town hall or courthouse, somewhere between Baroque flamboyance and Renaissance sobriety.
Unusual modernity
Heralded by the work of Burges, the Arts and Crafts movement advocated straightforward, logical constructions inspired by medieval models, with a return to traditional craftsmanship. The aim: to shape living space with quality, handcrafted products, while returning art and architecture to an edifying, functional purpose. The Arts and Crafts movement was most evident in the sturdy elegance of houses such as High Glanau and Wyndcliffe Court in Monmouthshire. A few years later, Art Deco made its appearance, with its clever interplay of straight and curved lines and the elegance of its sober decorative motifs. This style can be seen at Welshpool's Pola Cinema and the Pavilion at Penarth Pier (a Victorian-era pier). In 1925, the unclassifiable architect Clough Williams-Ellis embarked on the mad project of creating a village from scratch, made up of palaces, cottages and follies in a deeply fanciful Italianate style. A sort of ideal village, exuberant and cheerful, far removed from the monotonous codes of modernity. Between romanticism, picturesqueness and baroque, Portmeirion attracted some of the world's greatest names, including legendary architect Frank Lloyd Wright. Williams-Ellis and Wright shared an unconditional love of nature. As early as 1945, the extravagant architect was involved in the creation of the British National Parks, and never ceased to insist on the need to preserve the environment and our heritage. Portmeirion is a far cry from the clean lines of Villa Marina in Llandudno, whose architecture is reminiscent of a ship, with its tall chimneys and rail-like balconies. A villa with all the hallmarks of international style.
Contemporary treasures
Contemporary architecture in Wales is a skilful blend of Welsh identity, technological research and sustainable development. In the 90s, Norman Foster gave Wales its National Botanic Garden... the world's largest monoblock greenhouse (95 m long and 55 m wide!). The greenhouse is a kind of dome made up of 785 glass panels that partially sink into the ground, giving the impression that the greenhouse is literally emerging from the depths of the earth. A rooted greenhouse... a lovely metaphor! Foster is also responsible for the BBC's headquarters in the heart of Cardiff, an incredible metal canopy protecting a transparent building. Another astonishing piece of architecture is the Maison Malator by the Future System agency. With its green roof, luminous interior and high-tech yet organic architecture, the house seems naturally embedded in the cliff. In Cardiff, the Cardiff Bay project was launched in the 1980s. Today, this redevelopment of the docklands district is home to a marina, a nature reserve, several parks and, above all, two icons of contemporary Welsh architecture. On the one hand, the Millennium Center, designed by its architect, Jonathan Adams, as an ode to Welsh identity, using the region's flagship materials such as slate, wood and metal. His aim was to create a building that, like the cliffs of the Welsh coastline, could withstand the passage of time without losing any of its beauty. Only time will tell how this astonishing copper dome, pierced by glass windows in the shape of letters writing the lines of a Welsh poem in the night, will evolve. On the other, the Senedd or National Assembly, designed by Richard Rogers. This building is a model of ecology and transparency, between high-tech and sustainable architecture. The transparency of the glass symbolizes that of power, while the public spaces, imagined as agoras symbolizing democracy, are protected by a vast roof with curves reminiscent of the waves lapping the nearby shoreline, a roof flanked by an astonishing chimney resembling a wind tower. Wood, glass and slate are used as a symbol of Welsh identity, and are combined here with numerous renewable energy processes. An iconic building that proves that relying on identity and tradition doesn't prevent us from looking to the future!
