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Heritage classified

Key figures

Origin and history

The former Roure-Bertrand perfumery, located in Grasse in the Alpes-Maritimes, is an industrial complex built between the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Six main buildings remain: the distillery and boiler room (with a 35-metre brick fireplace), the extraction hall, the shipping and absolute building, and the administrative building. These structures, erected at different times, adopt a marked neoclassical architecture and occupy a promontory plot overlooking the surrounding countryside. The almost squared distillery has an elevated ground floor and a wooden frame, while the chimney, embedded in the north wall, rests on a base of bricks and carved stones.

The company Roure-Bertrand, founded in 1820 by Claude Roure, settled on this site after 1870, on old religious properties in the Capucins district (present-day avenue Pierre-Sémard). The first industrial buildings, such as the distillery and boiler plant, date back to the years 1865-1871, when the company invested the site. The building of the absolutes, enlarged in the 1890s, and the extraction hall (circa 1900) complete the whole. In the 1910s, the administrative building was built on the site of an old rural building, completing the layout of the site. The departmental road No. 6, privatized on an indefinite date, initially separates the two construction groups.

The factory, in operation until 1998, employed up to 150 people in the 1950s. After its closure, only buildings prior to the 1920s were retained and listed in the Historical Monuments Inventory in 2004. Secondary structures after 1940, as well as technical elements (pipes, tanks), were demolished. The site illustrates the climax of the Brazilian perfumery industry, combining religious heritage, technical innovations (metal carpents, thin brick walls) and neoclassical architecture, reflecting the evolution of an artisanal activity towards industrial production.

The expedition building, of an asserted neoclassical character, has two levels with a central arcade giving access to the building of absolutes, the most imposing of the site. The latter, with three floors and cellars, uses metal poles to support its floors. The administrative building, built in the 1910s, recaptures the proportions of the shipping building, with a balustrade perron and a wrought iron marquise. The extraction hall, below, is distinguished by its light metal structure (8 cm thick walls) and its fibrocement roof, replacing the original cover.

The history of the site is marked by successive enlargements: after the acquisition of the land in 1871 (dated engraved on the building of absolutes), the company extended its installations in the 1880s-1890s, and then incorporated the Felker garden in the 1910s to build the administrative building. The privatization of the No. 6 departmental road allows for a unification of the site. The materials used — bricks, cut stone, riveted metal, wood — bear witness to the industrial construction techniques of the time, while the spatial organization (inner courtyard, staircase, glass gallery disappeared) reflects a functional logic adapted to perfumery production.

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