In Saint-Benoît-des-Ondes, local officials and residents commissioned a project to transform the Moulin de la Croix into an open public space and a symbol of the municipality’s identity.
In 2002, the Saint-Benoît-des-Ondes Town Council acquired the Moulin de la Croix, an 18th-century building overlooking the bay of Mont Saint-Michel. The mill stands at the entrance to the village, alongside the departmental road to Mont Saint-Michel, with around 10,000 vehicles passing daily.
The municipality and its residents wished to commission an artist to transform the site into a public space: a strong symbol for locals and a landmark for visitors. They entrusted the project to artist Jean-Luc Vilmouth, whose work seeks to “augment reality”. Through strategies of diversion, he poeticises our relationship to existing places and everyday forms, creating new ways of sharing.
Vilmouth proposes turning the Croix mill into a place for observation, discussion, gathering and orientation within the landscape—inviting visitors to pause along their route. A staircase leads to the roof, converted into a terrace offering panoramic views of the bay and surrounding marshlands. Inside, a 360° lightbox displays a panoramic photograph of the vista. From the terrace and through the photographic panorama, visitors can piece together the history of this seascape: from sea to reclaimed farmland, from Mont Saint-Michel to the village, and from the canal to the wetlands. The distinctive Corten steel railing, with curves evoking the bay’s tidal movements, transforms the mill into a new object, somewhere between architecture and sculpture. Starting from the familiar function of a railing, the artist amplifies it into a kinetic aura—a delicate envelope that embraces the building. Its undulations accompany visitors as they ascend to the terrace, while turning the mill into a landmark in dialogue with the coastline.
