Cadaqués
Location: Spain (Province of Girona – Catalonia)
Village type: Permanent
Opening date: June 9, 1962
Closing year: 2003.
A little background: In 1960, Spain, and in particular the Costa Brava region, opened itself up to mass tourism.
Investors and developers carried out projects that, over the years, led to the "concrete jungle" built over certain areas of the coastline to create seaside resorts.
One of these investors, who had just acquired a 300-hectare plot of land near Cadaques, knocked on the door of Club Med during the autumn of 1961.
The proposed site is located in the immediate vicinity of Cap de Creus, more precisely between Pla de Tudela and Cala de Culip.
The Club's reconnaissance mission discovered an isolated, hostile, wild place, battered by the winds of the Pyrenees and sea spray. In short, it was difficult to accept, and yet…
It was Jean Weiler, the Club's architect and decorator (who also designed the amphitheater and invented the crenellated bar), who took up the challenge. He teamed up with Pelayo Martinez, an architect from Figueres, to design a village on this difficult terrain.
Even the great Salvador Dalí contributed by creating some sketches of his vision. The famous painter also received Gilbert Trigano and Gérard Blitz at the beginning of the village's construction; he was also present at the village's inauguration.
They do not yet know that they are going to build, on this heath, one of the most mythical villages of Club Med.
This is what Jean Weiler wrote at the beginning of 1962:
"The Club Med Village is located approximately 6 km north of Cadaqués. The site is situated on the northern slope of Cap de Creus. The terrain is very steep and rocky. In winter, it is swept by strong winds from the Pyrenees. These climatic conditions have forced a change in the type of construction commonly used by Club Med, which is primarily wooden accommodations covered with straw.".
We opted for a robust structure, rediscovering the character of the local architecture. The double bedroom was deliberately reduced to its bare minimum, without running water or electricity. This was for economic reasons due to the particularly steep and rocky terrain.
The club's accommodation unit is characterized by simple furnishings, good climate insulation and good ventilation
So for the first time, the Polynesian hut was abandoned in favor of small, permanent dwellings of approximately 6 square meters, the space needed to install two beds and a wardrobe. The dwellings were grouped in small clusters of 8 to 15, following the boundaries of the land.
The project will be drawn up (or modified 3 times). The final plan or site plan submitted by Jean Weiller is as follows:
"The village is planned for 1,200 people. The first phase (1962) planned for 800.".
We have adopted a scheme to separate the night areas – accommodation – to preserve peace and quiet, from the central and lively area and the meeting point for all the activities that will take place throughout the day.
The main road crosses a plaza where the parking lot, the arrival point for vehicles, is located. Only cars transporting club members and trucks for the restaurant will be allowed to use the final stretch to the center. The parking lot will be gated and guarded.
The infirmary is situated in a small natural circle overlooking the restaurant and the esplanade leading to the sea.
The reception area comprises changing rooms, information on excursions, accommodation booking, luggage storage, offices, the village manager's office, passport control, and traffic management.
The village is enclosed along the road and opens onto the landscape and the sea via a terrace. It features a portico attached to a tower: the lower section serves as a library, and the upper section as a dovecote. From this platform, the final point of vehicle access, there is a path to the restaurant .
The kitchen is triangular in shape. The division of the restaurant corresponds to a new type of communal dining space. A garden separates the two covered areas.
There are two entrances to the restaurant, one facing the sea, the other facing the Eagle Rock. The restaurant is built into a hillside, behind which are the bar and dance floor, surrounded by terraces clinging to the mountainside like those in ancient theaters. The dance floor is further encircled by a terrace, a stage for the orchestra, the sound booth, the recording studio, the dressing room, and the backstage area.
The terrace provides access to the bar, which is slightly removed from the entertainment area, but at the same time it relates to it.
The bar is halfway between the restaurant and the track. On the ground, at the foot of the Eagle rock, there is a garden, a tree plantation with ponds and a classical music auditorium.
Plans are in place to create sports fields along the edge of the small port and the artificial beach.
There are 8 or 10 toilets in the accommodation area. These include toilets, open and closed showers, washbasins, hairdryers, irons, and razor lights. The exterior is constructed of dry stone walls using locally sourced materials. All buildings are constructed with local materials, including dry stone walls and staircases, tiled or flat roofs, and walls that are whitewashed and have slate and tiled floors
Under the direction of Jean WEILER and Pelayo MARTINEZ, the 500 Spanish workers hired had 90 days to build the village.
Claude EYGUESIER has the heavy task of opening the village, a village barely finished on June 9, 1962.
We go to Cadaqués for water sports. Very quickly, the village becomes a mecca for diving (both freediving and scuba diving) to explore the underwater world and its impressive drop-offs. Boarding the caiques takes place in the small cove of Culip, overlooked by the restaurant next door.
Thanks to favorable wind conditions, the village is also renowned for its sailing school. Water skiing also has its place in the early years.
Did you know?
For several years, the village served as a rescue center for divers injured in diving accidents. The village had a hyperbaric decompression chamber. This type of equipment was very rare at the time and virtually impossible to find in the region. The nearest one was located in Toulon and belonged to the military.
And today.
In 1998, the Cap Creus Natural Park was created
The village closed in 2004. The Spanish state bought the land occupied by the Club for 4.5 million euros, and, together with the Catalonia region, spent a further 7 million euros to restore the site to nature. Demolition of the village began on Monday, July 13, 2009, and lasted three years.
Today, the site is part of the Cap de Creus Natural Park. Some remains of the village have been preserved as a testament to the site's past, as well as the landing stage in Cala Culip.
Videos
Club Med Cadaques
The DinausauresClub – Gérard Pigeon DECOSTERD
TVE 3 report on the demolition of the Club Med in Cadaques and the transformation of the site.
Club Med Cadaqués, 1970. Source unknown (excerpt from a Club Med commercial publication from that time?)
Soaring over the Pla de Tudela like a bird. Beautiful HD images
Regarding the project management, don't forget Robert Baudin. I know because I went to see him there several times. He was on site even before the road was built (under his supervision), and we used to go there in a fishing boat. Dali also received my father; I waited for him while fishing on the small quay in front of his house in Portlligat.
I also knew the investor mentioned in your article (well, if it's the same one…). If I remember correctly, his name was Gordon (I hope I'm not mistaken)… and I rode in his car… a Rolls-Royce (which certainly made an impression on the child I was at the time). During the road construction, a worker sadly died (that's what I think I remember my father telling me).
1985, GO Diving.
A lost marvel…
I was there in 1982 to go diving
. A dream come true. There was an instructor, Michel, who introduced us to "sea slugs."
Without ever taking his regulator off, he gave us a masterclass.
Thanks to him, I've tracked them in every sea I've dived in.
Thank you, Michel.
Hello, this is my first trip abroad as a manager in Barcelona. The car Robert is talking about was a
Mercedes 600, Franco's and
Antonio Van de Valle's.
Also in Cadaqués, Perret, the singer, and La Chunga
, the dancer, made their debut in front of the GMs and later became very famous
artists.
was the birthplace of
quite a few GOs (Gentils Organisateurs - Club Med staff).
Club Med Cadaqués? Fantastic holidays close to home, affordable, and in an exceptional setting! A stunning natural site, magnificent architecture that blends seamlessly into its surroundings. A connection with wild, rugged, and exceptional nature, shared with thousands of holidaymakers each year…
The natural park that now replaces it is a desert filled with pebbles, like the rest of the coast. If only for the aesthetic appeal of their perfect integration into the landscape, they could have preserved these small white kasbahs, whose beautifully executed layout highlighted the terrain!
The park does not attract as many visitors as its ancient casbahs!
Their aesthetic was exceptional in its simplicity, in its harmony with the landscape, and in its complete respect for local architecture.
That was more than 600 jobs per year!
But ultimately, wouldn't the 5,000 annual holidaymakers, deprived of places to live, have simply moved to this massive and ugly development in the wild hills of the village of Cadaques?
What have we ultimately gained, and what have we lost, in the destruction of this successful holiday village, which attracted thousands of tourists instead of forcing them to build elsewhere?
The buildings that now surround Cadaqués are hideously ugly, with no harmony with the landscape, not even respecting the local architecture, displaying only the bad taste of nouveau riche on holiday, around an old village of character.
These suburban housing developments, which are aesthetically completely unappealing, are a total blight on the area around Cadaques:
And now, for one month of vacation per year and a few weekends, these holiday homes artificially develop 500 to 1000 m² of land per family, instead of 12 m² at Club Med for 2 people who change every 15 days for 4 months a year, which is 166 times less destructive development of nature!!
Which tourism development system is the most destructive to the landscape and the environment?
And which system provides the most stable, low-skilled jobs (the kind we so desperately need), rather than short-term profits for a select few? I wonder…
After several seasons in Cadaqués as a kitchen assistant, and so many memories and friends left there,
a final visit to my friends: Paco, Maria Angeles, Antonio, and so many others whose names escape me, but not their faces and the good times spent with them.
My last visit to Cadaqués left a bitter taste in my heart. Why destroy everything to put up so many ugly things, for profit? Cadaqués has lost its wild soul for…?
Hello, I was in Cadaqués from January to September 1969 for the refurbishment of the kitchens, refrigerators, high-voltage electrical system, etc. The head of the equipment department was the Swiss Rolland Fabre or Favre. He had brought in another Swiss man, Daniel Collet, who also had electrical skills. Collet was a diving instructor in Cadaqués during the summer. I have photos and several anecdotes.
I went back to see the Cabo Creuz Lighthouse. I remember Paco and his wife Maria well, as well as Jesus (Rézus), the driver and handyman. Lots of good memories from that time before joining the Manial Palace in Cairo, Egypt, and many other adventures.
I completely agree with you.
It was a beautiful place, with respect for the environment.
We are a long way from that today.
HI,
I still have the diving watch you sold me around 1956/1960 in Palinuro (Jean Richard, which became Aquastar after servicing in Marseille)...
WHAT MEMORIES! Contal, JP Chesné, Serge Andrieux, Jacques Masson...
WHAT A TIME!
Best regards from someone well over eighty.
Richard Rybinski
Wow José Brotons we dove together between 62 opening village Claude Eyguesier and 63 64 65 66 67
What memories Masson Roussel …
Gérard Rubinski
Hey brother
, nice comment!
See you soon!
Head bartender in '89, the centenary year of the Revolution… we didn't get much sleep that season!
Hello, I was in Cadaqués from January to September 1969 for the refurbishment of the kitchens, refrigerators, high-voltage electrical system, etc. The head of the equipment department was the Swiss Rolland Fabre or Favre. He had brought in another Swiss man, Daniel Collet, who also had electrical skills. Collet was a diving instructor in Cadaqués during the summer. I have photos and several anecdotes.
I went back to see the Cabo Creuz Lighthouse. I remember Paco and his wife Maria well, as well as Jesus (Rézus), the driver and handyman. Lots of good memories from that time before joining the Manial Palace in Cairo, Egypt, and many other adventures.
MICHEL:
A handful of us divers met regularly in June and September, taking advantage
of off-season prices, and eventually formed a small club that would then get together for a Red Sea trip
organized by a Parisian.
repeated spearfishing
competitions The very basic accommodations were only recently equipped with dim lighting, and they had a
particular name that I've forgotten.
For the plans and execution, there is above all Claude Brizay, a former student of ENSAD who designed the plans for the Club Med in Cadaqués…
GO in 1995. Probably my best summer ever. The place was magical
We must have crossed paths there; it was one of the best vacation weeks of my life! This article brings a pang of nostalgia…
Hello everyone. I was a GO of free diving, snorkeling and spear fishing in the summer of 1967 at Club Med Cadaquez. I was the only American. I had studied at Sciences Pol in Paris from Sept 1966 to May 1967 and swam on the Univ of Paris swim team.
My fellow GO's of free-diving were Jean-Jacques and Henri. We were together all day every day. I have wonderful unique memories of that summer. The casitas where we lived, the diving trips, the overnights on the beach, cooking lamb and making sangria and singing around the campfire on the beach. An afternoon visit to Salvador Dali's home where we met him and his wife Gala and some lovely girls who were his muses. I met Gerard Blitz and Serge Triganon who asked me to join the Club Med team, but I had to finish my last year at my college in Connecticut. But I have wonderful memories of a unique village and adventures.
Harrison Knight
Hello Harrisson
I am Jean Jacques 's sister and I was in Cadaques at this time
I remember you
my brother Jean Jacques died in 1998
i live for a long time near Spanish boarder and i met Henri at numerous times in Perpignan
sincerely yours
Raymonde
1979, what a magnificent year for diving! The center director was Jean Michel Couttet, and the divers included Jean Denis Deberles, Serge (nicknamed "the Viking"), Gilles Bouchez (nicknamed "the Poet"), Thierry Botto, Vincent, Dominique (the tank-filler), Bernard Jarry (the seducer), Bill Chenz (the photographer from Ara Kiri), Jacques Burri, myself, Christian Golvec (nicknamed "the Gaffe"), and many others whose names I've forgotten. There was Rocé, the captain of the Illa, and his son, Miguel, a wonderful sailor. So many beautiful and fond memories! I would love to relive that year; that club brought me so much joy. Tomorrow, if the comment allows, I'll post the photo where everyone is in their diving gear on the Illa. To all those I've taken diving with and who remember me, all my best. 1979 was a superb year for diving in Cadaqués. "The Gaffe.".
I was there too in June 1979, where my father had sent me for my first experience with Club Med and my first dives in the sea. It was fantastic, indeed, for the 19-year-old kid I was. Thank you all.
It's a shame about the demolition.
HURP GO. Two seasons
– Restaurant Manager, CULIPE. Village Chief. Gérard Roussel
– Assistant to Yvan Thiédu, Village Chief
I was in the Club Med at Cadaques with a friend, booked at Longwy (France)
1979, the little bungalows had a name, our key, and we spent one week there! It was a nice week there and RIP for Dany Mergen was there too Greetings from Luxembourg Ady Weber