The Red Square by Gloria Friedmann, a picture-refuge surrounded by meadows and forests in Haute-Marne

According to the stele planted at the edge of the road leading to it, the Red Square, “Picture Refuge for a Family of Six, is a work by Gloria Friedmann (in association with Adelfo Scaranello), commissioned by Hubert Guénin (1932-1997) with the support of the Caisse des dépôts et consignations and the Fondation de France ( program New Patrons) with the mediation of the Consortium, contemporary art center in Dijon”. The inscription is read on a square of a red as bright as one of the faces of the cube, two others being white and the fourth glazed.

The brick walls that make up this cube house a ground floor with a dirt floor and an upper floor, 60 m² in all. Framework and furniture – basic – are made of wood. Neither water nor electricity, but wood for the kitchen, gas lamps and beds for the night. All around, nature, a river, the forest, meadows: the landscape of the Langres plateau, in the town of Villars-Santenoge (Haute-Marne), without a house around.

Animals for only neighbors

The Red Square was inaugurated in 1997. Gloria Friedmann tells the story as follows: “As I have walked a lot in the mountains, I am used to refuges, and I had the desire to create one. The first project, in the Alps, had to be abandoned. As I live in Burgundy, I thought of the Langres plateau. Hubert Guénin, the owner of the land, agreed, and that’s how things happened, simply and inexpensively. » The idea was to offer a stay far from any city, without “modern comfort” and with only animals as neighbors – “boars and deer come to say hello and make conversation”, says the artist, many of whose works focus on the relationship between humans and animals in today’s world. She also specifies, not without irony again, having observed that the female visitors were more quickly accustomed to the rusticity of the accommodation than the male visitors.

Immediate, the success was also lasting: “There were always guests, even in winter, she says. It was always full. » She speaks in the imperfect because, for the time being, despite its notoriety, the Red Square is closed, for lack of a person who would take care of its maintenance, as the Guénin family did for a long time.

But a somewhat similar experience is possible elsewhere, again thanks to Gloria Friedmann. In Ardèche, on the watershed line between the Atlantic and the Mediterranean, in the town of Borne, in 2017 it erected Lighthouse, seven-meter-high all-blue round tower. It can only be reached on foot. Estimated time to climb: 1h15. The GR 7 passes nearby. Lighthouse has, as it should, its spiral staircase and a 360° view over an immense horizon. It also houses a library, but “it’s not a refuge”, warns Gloria Friedmann. “Or only on stormy days. It’s a place to slow down time. »

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