Hauteville House, Victor Hugo’s house in Guernsey, is reopening to the public after two years of closure due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Three years of his life
Visitors will once again be able to discover Victor Hugo’s house, a place steeped in the memory of an extraordinary literary, artistic and political life. Hauteville House was the writer’s workplace and the heart of a family life. Since its renovation in 2018, it has once again revealed the little-known talent of an architect and decorator Hugo. The poet has devoted three years of his life to creating a total work of art that unfolds over an area of almost 1,200 m² on a plot of over 2,000 m². It is in particular in this residence that he wrote some of his most beautiful masterpieces such as Les Miserables or Les Travailleurs de la mer. Hauteville House is a unique place which preserves the singularity of the decorations designed by Victor Hugo himself and thus maintains the spirit which presided over their creation.
A total work of art
A masterpiece of decorative art and included on the list of Historic Monuments of Guernsey, its heritage and artistic interest is widely known beyond the French and Anglo-Norman borders. Hauteville House is a “total work of art” through which Victor Hugo expresses all his creativity and modernity. He diverts everyday objects, assembles pieces of furniture and decorative elements of very different styles, uses all materials – tapestries, felt, ceramics, woodwork – freeing himself from the rules and claiming the absolute freedom of creative genius. In this dense and eclectic decor, with inexhaustible details that refer to the literary work, can also be read the spirit of the proscribed poet, who saturates the space to bear witness to the pain of exile, but also to reaffirm his ideals and his trust in man. Hugo thus expresses an extremely original aesthetic, made up of contrasts and inventions, testifying to his great artistic freedom.
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