La Corderie Royale, Rochefort
The Corderie Royale (the Royal ropeworks), was once upon a time the place where ropes were made for the country (very important for ships’ rigging!), and which was built in 1669 on the orders of King Louis XIV and his minister Colbert. This purpose explains the distinctive long, thin shape of the building – it stretches for 374 metres – the southern part of which the Centre International de la Mer occupies.
The international sea centre was established in 1985 and houses both permanent and temporary exhibitions, as much information as you could want to know about rope-making and rigging, and a specialist maritime library. Themes have included the story of fishing, the great writers on the sea – especially the peerless Joseph Conrad – and the reconstruction work on the nearby Hermione project.
The Corderie Royale was designed by well-known architect and engineer of his time François Blondel, sometimes known as ‘the great Blondel’. To overcome the problem of a wet clay site the ropeworks were built on a vast grill of oak timber. The limestone used for the building came from Crazannes, further up the River Charente. In 1944 the occupying Germans torched the building when they left, and the building remained a wreck for two decades. But thanks to the maritime prefect of Rochefort Admiral Dupont it was classified as an historic monument in 1967 and eventually fully restored.
The Exhibitions
The big exhibition until the end of 2011, for example, was called La Mer à l’encre – a fascinating history of three centuries of maritime navigational maps from the beginning of the 16th to the end of the 18th century. This was a period when the accuracy of a map was literally a matter of life or death.
One of the centrepieces of the exhibition was a collection of 29 maps drawn up under the orders of Colbert in the 17th century and which was an atlas of the coastlines of Europe. The other is a video where the viewer finds him or herself of the bridge of a ship caught in a debate between a cartographer and their calculations and a worried ship’s captain who has to deal with the real obstacles ahead…
Another recent exhibition, La Promesse d’une île, was devoted to the fascinating story of how and why the Pacific Islands became populated. The exhibition for 2014, meanwhile, Des embruns dans les bulles, looks at the story of the sea through the eyes of comic strip artists.
Workshops
The centre also holds occasional workshops, for example, on tying knots. Check out the Centre International de la Mer website for more details. There is also a shop to buy souvenirs, books and CDs, and a restaurant called Les Longitudes.
The International sea centre works closely with the nearby Hermione replica construction project and joint tickets are available.
Address and Contact Information
La Corderie Royale Centre International de la Mer
Rue Audebert BP 50 108
17303 Rochefort
Tel: +33 5 46 87 01 90
Website: www.corderie-royale.com