Royal Saltworks at Arc-et-Senans
| Royal Saltworks at Arc-et-Senans | |
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| Saline royale d'Arc-et-Senans | |
Main façade of the Royal Saltworks
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| General information | |
| Location | Arc-et-Senans, Doubs |
| Country | France |
| Coordinates | 47°01′59″N 5°46′41″E / 47.033°N 5.778°ECoordinates: 47°01′59″N 5°46′41″E / 47.033°N 5.778°E |
| Construction started | 1775 |
| Design and construction | |
| Architect | Claude-Nicolas Ledoux |
| Official name | From the Great Saltworks of Salins-les-Bains to the Royal Saltworks of Arc-et-Senans, the Production of Open-pan Salt |
| Type | Cultural |
| Criteria | i, ii, iv |
| Designated | 1982 (6th session) |
| Reference no. | 203 |
| State Party | France |
| Region | Europe and North America |
| Extension | 2009 |
The Saline Royale (Royal Saltworks) is a historical building at Arc-et-Senans in the department of Doubs, eastern France. It is next to the Forest of Chaux and about 35 kilometers from Besançon. The architect was Claude-Nicolas Ledoux (1736–1806), a prominent Parisian architect of the time. The work is an important example of an early Enlightenment project in which the architect based his design on a philosophy that favored arranging buildings according to a rational geometry and a hierarchical relation between the parts of the project.
The Institut Claude-Nicolas Ledoux has taken on the task of conservator and is managing the site as a monument. UNESCO added the "Salines Royales" to its List of World Heritage Sites in 1982.
Today, the site is mostly open to the public. It includes, in the building the coopers used, displays by the Ledoux Museum of other futuristic projects that were never built. Also, the salt production buildings house temporary exhibitions.
The train line from Besançon to Bourg-en-Bresse passes just next to the salt works. The station for Arc-et-Senans is only a few dozen meters from the site.
In the 18th century salt was an essential and valuable commodity. At the time, salt was widely used for the preservation of foods such as meat or fish. The ubiquity of salt use caused the French government to impose the gabelle, a tax on salt consumption. The government mandated that all people over the age of 8 years buy an amount of salt per year at a price that the government had set. The Ferme Générale was responsible for collecting the gabelle.
As a region, Franche-Comté was relatively well-endowed with salt springs due to subterranean seams of halite. Consequently, there were a number of small salt works, such as those at Salins-les-Bains and Montmorot, that extracted salt by boiling water over wood fires. The salt works stood close to the springs and drew on wood brought from nearby forests. After many years of exploitation, the forests were becoming more and more rapidly denuded, with the result that wood had to be brought from farther and farther away, at greater and greater cost. Furthermore, over time the salt content of the brine was dropping. This led the experts of the Ferme Générale to consider exploiting even small springs, an initiative that the King's council stopped in April 1773. Part of the problem was that it was impossible to build evaporation buildings because Salins-les-Bains sat in a small valley.
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