Architecture in English version

1. La Gare de Morcenx

It's a well-established fact: Morcenx was born from its train station. Where the traveler sees a small provincial train station, there once stood the most important station in the Landes, after those of Dax and Mont-de-Marsan. Morcenx owes it to Napoleon III: he decreed in 1853 that the line from...

2. Office de Tourisme

Even before 1992, the year the Arjuzanx thermal power plant closed, the town of Morcenx was involved in the establishment of new economic hubs in the area, emphasizing the need for inter-municipal cooperation.

3. Le kiosque à musique

This view taken in 1907 by Ferdinand Bernède shows the paved area of Place de la Liberté. A base appears to have been prepared for the bandstand that would be installed facing Rue Brémontier for local festivals. It could be dismantled, and for nearly half a century, the Cigale de Morcenx band had...

4. Le complexe municipal et le centre Jean Jaurès

Arriving at Place Léo Bouyssou, the visitor faces two buildings with strange similarities: the Jean Jaurès Center and its opposite, the cinema.

5. Le cinéma

Like its opposite number, the Jean Jaurès Center, the Morcenx cinema had several missions when it was built: meeting room, function room and then cinema with the arrival of the 7th Art.

6. La mairie

Until the late 1940s, municipal council meetings were held in the town hall, built in 1854 and whose pavilion is in front of the boys' school, facing the large central square of Morcenx, then called Place de la Liberté.

7. La poste

The creation of a station in Morcenx generated, from the end of the 19th century, a considerable volume of mail, both letters and parcels. The mail was handled by the Hôtel des Postes and by the Ponton des Postes, located inside the station.

8. La bourse du travail

Alongside the town hall, a second building with a rotunda adjoins the cinema: the Bourse Hall. Its primary purpose was to be a labor exchange, a place where workers seeking employment came to offer their services to forest owners, timber merchants, factory owners, and artisans.

9. École municipale de musique et de danse

A building also featuring a rotunda faces the Bourse Hall. A legacy of the municipal complex, it housed a dispensary, a library, and a youth club that served as a music hall for the Cigale de Morcenx, the very old musical society that celebrated its 140th anniversary in 2022!

10. La maison Saint-Jours et la résidence autonomie

The Villa la Landaise was owned by timber manufacturer Louis Saint-Jours, who was also mayor of Morcenx from 1925 to 1935.

11. Le cours complémentaire

The school complex having been completed at the end of the 1920s, all that was missing was a supplementary course, a constant request from teachers since 1933.

12. École élémentaire de la Gare

Surprising as it may seem, the Gare School is actually the first municipal complex in Morcenx, the new town born from the train. It is a group of buildings, among the oldest in Morcenx, designed to provide a school complex with a boys' school on the south side, and a girls' school on the north si...