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The future (and past) of modular construction.

Choosing a hotel can be a bit hit and miss, but what about this for a find and really forty years ahead of its time in construction terms.

Built by French Architect Pascal Hausermann in 1967, when flower power, mind expanding drugs, and love ins were the real deal, Museumotel in Raon L'Etape in Eastern France has just been reopened after extensive renovation.

The form as you can see is bonkers (thirty years before the Teletubbies were a tinky winkle in the BBC's eyes), but the buildings themselves are environmentally sound. Modular (but whacky) construction, poured concrete with an embedded high thermal mass, external insulation, triple glazed windows and glass fibre reinforced doors, and own water supply, make this a pioneer of many building techniques some of which they got right and others not quite. It is an experience not to be missed and its Gallic charm extends to the owners who are as potty as the buildings themselves.

So would I recommend that you went ? – For a night yes, for its architectural oddity definitely, for typical Gallic hospitality of course. Its a hotel trapped in the Sixties, and I'm old enough to remember the Sixties - I think.

Remember you saw it first here, I cannot imagine what Trip Advisor or the Architectural Review would make of it.

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