Laundry, Washhouse in Aurillac, France
The Lavoir is a traditional stone washhouse in Aurillac, built with a sheltering roof, stone basins, and water channels designed for doing laundry. The structure has a simple, functional form that is typical of this type of building found across rural France.
Washhouses like this one became widespread in France during the 19th century, when local authorities were encouraged to build them as part of a public health effort. They replaced open-air riverside washing and offered a covered, organized space for daily laundry work.
The word "lavoir" simply means washhouse in French, and these structures were once found in nearly every town across France. They served as a shared space where women from all walks of life met regularly to do laundry and exchange news.
The washhouse is easy to reach on foot from the old part of Aurillac, and the surrounding streets are worth walking through to see other historic buildings nearby. There is no formal entrance, so visitors can stop and look at any time.
France once had tens of thousands of these washhouses, but most disappeared after washing machines became common in homes during the 1950s and 1960s. The one in Aurillac is among those that have survived and can still give a sense of that vanished daily routine.
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