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Heritage classified

Key figures

Origin and history

The garden of the abbey of Vierzon, including square Lucien Beaufrère, was built on an island purchased in 1922 by the municipality at Benedictine Abbey Saint-Pierre. This project aimed to create a public garden between the Berry Canal and the Yèvre. In 1927, a competition was launched for a monument to the deaths of the First World War, won by architect-sculptor Eugène-Henri Karcher, who proposed a collection of monuments, gardens and artistic elements.

Eugène-Henri Karcher, winner of the competition, conceived the monument as a "history page" symbolizing human pain and aspiration for peace. He lived eight years in Vierzon to supervise the works, collaborating with local unemployed for the earthworks and artisans (ferronnier Louis Charbonnier, ceramists Denert and Balichon). The garden, inaugurated in 1933 for the monument and 1935 for the auditorium, combines modernity (beton, electric lighting) and pacifist symbols.

The garden extends over 6,000 m2, divided into an Art Deco area (basin, mosaic fountains, peace gates) and a 19th century romantic garden. The monument to the dead, made of Lavoux stone, includes a lay pietà and a sculpture added in 1962, with man thinking, commemorating the Second World War. The auditorium Albert-Collet, built in 1935, serves as a music kiosk with stage and orchestra pit.

Ranked a historic monument in 1996 (after an inscription in 1988), the garden was rehabilitated between 2000 and 2007. Its originality lies in the integration of an artistic, social (employment of unemployed) and memorial project, reflecting the pacifist aspirations of the inter-war period.

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