The former Museumotel designed by architect Pascal Haüsermann, should reopen in 2023

The eleven bubble houses nestled on an island in Raon-l'Étape, in the Vosges, designed by Swiss architect Pascal Haüsermann in 1967, should once again welcome the public in the summer of 2023, after many adventures.

Originally built to serve as an extension to a hotel, the structure, unprofitable, closed in 2016, the whole is auctioned in 2019. The round-shaped maisonettes, which inspired the creators of the Barbapapas in the 1970s, had several owners, before being acquired in 2019 by a Parisian lawyer for 360,000 euros.

See alsoHäusermann's bubble houses in the Vosges for sale at auction

Listed as a historic monument in 2014, the whole presents a bucolic setting that extends over a land bordered by willows of 4,100 m2, separated from the rest of the town by a stream, the Plain.

In 1967, the visionary and utopian architect Pascal Haüsermann installed eleven bubbles on this piece of land surrounded by water, made up of a metal structure and sprayed concrete veil, at the request of a hotelier.

Nine were dedicated to tourist rental, a main building of 150 m2 served as a reception with two large rooms upstairs and a technical room, or 405 m2 of living space in all.

Customers all over the world

In 2006, five friends, in search of a new life at the dawn of their forties, bought “the Haüsermann Island” for 180,000 euros, said Laurence Euvrard, one of them, to AFP. Since their inception, the bubbles have known five owners and were abandoned for a decade in the 1990s. "

" and which was in the process of being used. to lose his spirit of the years 1950 to 1970, so dear to the heart of

, also explained Bruno Tourmen, another of the owners. “

”and transform it into a gîte,remembers Mme Euvrard.

The five friends exchanged a lot with the Swiss artist, pioneer of blob architecture, favoring organic forms. Two years before his death in 2011, he had visited them and stayed in one of his achievements. When the bubbles reopened as a hotel structure in August 2007, renamed Museumotel, customers flocked from all over the world. The ace ! Between the economic crisis, the weight of bank loans and the geographical location of Raon-l'Étape, far from the Vosges ski slopes, the cottage was placed in receivership in 2015, then closed.

In 2023, the structure should reopen as a motel, to the great satisfaction of the former owner and manager Joël Morel.

"

" he told Vosges TV.

"The restoration mainly concerns a facelift to revive a magical place which will regain its original name,"

".