Timeline

Heritage classified

Key figures

Origin and history

The national monument to the Glières Plateau Resistance is a monumental reinforced concrete sculpture designed by Émile Gilioli and inaugurated on September 2, 1973. Located at 1,440 m above sea level in the commune of Glières-Val-de-Borne (formerly Petit-Bornand-les-Glières), it commemorates the fighting of the Glières maquis between January and August 1944, where 460 resistance fighters fought against the Wehrmacht and the Milice. The work, a 20-metre-long "V" topped by an unbalanced solar disk, symbolizes both victory, its cost, and the fragility of freedom. Inside, the motto "Living free or dying", engraved texts and a statue of Jeanne d'Arc by Gilioli recall the engagement of guerrillas.

The construction, launched in 1971 at the initiative of the Association des Survivés des Glières, was a technical challenge faced by engineer Étienne Schoendoerffer and local firm Barrachin. The site, disturbed by a snowfall in June 1973, finished in August. The monument, made of clear concrete marked by the veins of the wooden formwork, weighs 385 tons. Its 65-ton solar disc, suspended 2 cm above the "V", illustrates the artistic and engineering mastery of the team. André Malraux, at the inauguration, greeted "Gilioli's great white bird", highlighting his wing of hope and his wing of "combat amputation".

Ranked a historic monument since May 27, 2020 and labeled "Twentieth Century Heritage" in 2003, the site includes a memory space and an educational circuit. The plateau des Glières, released by the Resistance on 19 August 1944, became a national symbol. Gilioli, a disciple of Brancusi and a committed sculptor, synthesized his abstract art and tribute to the fighters. The monument, owned by the department of Haute-Savoie, remains a place of collection and transmission of resistant memory.

External links