Chateau de la Dominique

Project Description

Sitting in the middle of a prestigious vineyard, the Château La Dominique is on neighbourly terms with some of the most famous appellations in the world: Cheval Blanc, Petrus, Figeac, La Conseillante, l’Evangile… It clearly needed to mark its territory by enhancing and transforming a very special landscape. And so the idea was born to create a property that would rise up out of the existing building–a big stone barn right in the middle of the terrain–and would venture into the vines like a piece of land art, a nod to the artist Anish Kapoor.

The volume of this property is pure, consisting of a horizontal plane and four vertical mirror walls. On the terrace created between these planes, a veritable lookout floating over the vines, the fifth plane, detached and horizontal, reflects the existing roofs, the vines and the horizon. The east and west façades consist of a concrete veil, covered in a set of horizontal stainless steel slats that are polished and lacquered a dark red colour to remind us that it is all about wine here. The slats are progressively angled all the way down the façade, with the bottom slats angled upwards, reflecting the sky, while the slats at the top, angled progressively downwards, reflect the ground and the rows of vines. The north façade is transparent, consisting of a large two-way mirror that reflects the vines during the day and then reveals the new fermenting room when night falls. The roofing is a fine horizontal plate, with the underside made from the same dark red material as the façades. Upstairs, a restaurant with floor-to-ceiling glass walls looks north over a vast terrace. The terrace floor is covered in the centre with red glass gravel that you tread on as people once trod on grapes. Steps leading down from the terrace take you to a small balcony from where you can gaze out over the sea of vines.