Menier Chocolate

The Menier Chocolate Factory is a former factory complex chocolate manufacturer Menier family in the French community Noisiel. The old chocolate factory consists of three buildings which are under monument protection. The three main buildings are witnesses of the golden age of industrial architecture in the 19th century.

History

In 1825, the founder of the industrial dynasty Menier, Jean- Antoine Brutus Menier decided to move its pharmaceutical factory from the Marais district of Paris on the banks of the Marne. In Noisiel be offered for the site of the old mill. In 1836 he was the first who created chocolate as dessert. In 1867, his son Emile Justin Menier decides to use the factory exclusively for the production of chocolate. The workforce grew from 50 employees in 1856 to 325 in 1867, the end of the 19th century, nearly 2,000 people were employed. The reorganization of production at the required new buildings along the Marne. Thus, the old village and the system disappeared reaches 1860-1874 its present form leads.

The Menier Chocolate company worked until 1993. Today in the company premises is a museum and the French headquarters of the Food Group, Nestlé, the listening operation today. From the Government of France, the factory was classified as a historical industrial monument and it was included on the UNESCO list of World Heritage Sites ..

Description

Le Moulin Saulnier

Le Moulin Saulnier was designed by the architect Jules Saulnier 1865-1872. It is considered the first skeleton in the industry .. The structure rests on four standing in the Marne bridge piers and is made of steel truss - makers, in turn, support the two rows of interior columns and the half-timbered exterior walls. The outer walls obtained by diagonal struts that serve the stiffening, her signature look. The fields are lined with colored hollow bricks. The floors are made of steel - girder grids. The building housed the repair shops to grind the cocoa beans. It was classified in 1992 as a historical monument.

Eiffel Hall

The Eiffel hall, a steel structure of the engineer Jules Logre, was built in 1882-1884. They housed the machinery which ensured the necessary storage temperature of 4 ° C for the chocolate in 4,800 -square-foot basement. It was given its name because of striking inclusion of metal elements in its visual design, which combined their former viewers with the Eiffel Tower. Since 1986 she is on the list of cultural heritage.

The Cathedral

The third monument building is the cathedral, built between 1906 and 1908 in post -and-beam technology by the architect Charles Léon Sauvestre Stephen, who had also designed the Eiffel Tower built by Gustave Eiffel. Here sugar and cocoa were mixed for the chocolate. With the so-called Patios ( terraces ) on the other bank of the Marne, the cathedral combines a conveyor bridge with the then record the reach of 44.50 meters. Both buildings were registered in 1986 in the Heritage Inventory.

More

In addition, there is on the 14- acre site more interesting building, built 1864-1866 by Jules Saulnier protected Röstwerkstatt to sort the beans, in 1923 expanded by Louis Logre, as well as the aforementioned 1864-1867 with the conveyor bridge connected Patios by Jules Saulnier with the studio for the design of the packaging. In the building opposite the " Cathedral " by Louis Logre from the years 1907 to 1913 could wrap the chocolate nearly 800 workers.