Timeline

Origin and history

The house on Rue Cadène in Alet-les-Bains is a historical monument composed of two adjoining houses, built in the 16th century. These buildings rise on two floors above a ground floor, with a very marked corbellation on the street, less pronounced on the adjacent square. The second floor follows the alignment of the first, except at the ends overlooking the street, where it retracts slightly. Inside, the visible beams of the corner house have simple mouldings at the corners, while the joint covers under the floor form regular squares, adorned with stencil decorations on fibrous litters.

The facades preserve two original wooden windows on Rue Cadène, testimonies of Renaissance civil architecture. The whole, including the facades and roofs on street and on site, was included in the inventory of Historic Monuments by order of 5 April 1948. The structure reflects the construction techniques of the time, combining functionality and sober decoration, characteristic of bourgeois or artisanal houses in the small towns of Languedoc.

The location of this monument, between Grande-Place and Rue Cadène, suggests its integration into the medieval and reborn urban fabric of Alet-les-Bains, a city then marked by its religious role (formerly Benedictine Abbey) and its economic activity linked to regional exchanges. The pronounced corbellations, typical of the wooden and stone houses of this period, allowed to enlarge the living space while protecting passersby from the weather, illustrating the adaptation of architecture to social and climatic needs.

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