Every design for Mérignac

Ever flown into Bordeaux? Then you have already landed in Mérignac, the largest suburb of the city, which adjoins it to the west and is home to Bordeaux International Airport. For the people who live here, though, the planes are only the backdrop to a green and busy everyday life.

What makes Mérignac unique is how many old estates survive among its neighbourhoods. The town grew from a Gallo-Roman country villa called Matriniacus, and its landscape is still dotted with châteaux and follies: the Château de Bourran and its Tour de Bourran, the Château Le Burck, the Tour de Veyrines, the Maison carrée d'Arlac and the old church known locally as the Vieille Église Saint-Vincent. Even the town hall moved into a château, Le Vivier, bought by the council and wrapped in its own wooded park. Streams such as the Devèze and the Ontines run through it all, partly hidden underground, and the Camp d'internement de Mérignac Beaudésert keeps a sombre chapter of the town's past in view.

On a weekend afternoon, families spread out on the lawns of the Parc de Bourran while, overhead, another plane banks towards the runway.