L'Estaminet, Uzeste

L’Estaminet Theater was founded in Uzeste in 1937 by Alban and Marie Lubat. Over the years, it became a café, restaurant, hotel, grocery shop, cinema, and dance hall, and an emblematic feature of the village’s history and the rural life of Southern Gironde. Since 1978, under the aegis of musician Bernard Lubat, it has become the epicenter of the Lubat Company’s work and the founding venue of the Uzeste Music Festival, which has since acquired an international reputation. The commission was simple and came directly from the artist: transform the place into a “trans-artistic research laboratory”. This involved enlarging the volume of the performance hall, creating balconies with acoustic and sensual shapes, moving the entrance to a conservatory, and accommodating the offices in a part formerly occupied by a dwelling. With an extremely limited budget for this type of facility, particular attention was paid to the enhancement of the elements that bear witness to the past activity of the place (tiles, facade, old walls), as well as to compliance with drastic standards in terms of acoustics and public attendance.