Paris agency Barthélemy Grino delivered TAN (Scotland) to Glenmorangie – Lighthouse Distillery and its research laboratory in 2021. Industrial buildings and monumental paintings. art of life? communicated.
Located in the heart of the Scottish Highlands, Glenmorangie Distillery, established in 1843, enjoys an exceptional location between land and sea. In 2016, the Glenmorangie Company launched and assigned a competition to build an extension at its historic site of Tan. Project for Barthelemy Grino.
In October 2021, the agency committed to an ambitious development strategy, two industrial buildings, a symbol of the renewal of the brand. The challenges of the project are many: revive the image of a site with unique artistic information, express the pursuit of perfection of this famous house and offer the distillery the current high-performance building.
Halfway between tradition and modernity, the two volumes take place almost within the walls of the Bi-Centre distillery. The first, unglazed, fully glazed, in reference to the lighthouses guiding ships in the waters of the Dornoch Firth, called the “Lighthouse”, overlooks the site from a height of 20 metres.
An iconic setting for two monumental stills, the lighthouse also houses a manufacturing and tasting laboratory, on the top floor, offering a brief view of the gorgeous landscape of the North Sea coasts. The roundness and sweetness of the single malt also inspired the interior design of the laboratory. The modular elements echo the curves of the barrel, the colors and shades of amber whiskey, copper stills and oak barrels. Its glass envelope, lined with wood – from the barrels in which the aging whiskey is refined – is part of the history of the place, embodying the austere contemporary character of the distillery.
The building, completed by an annex decorated with local stones such as the existing warehouses, boasts innovative state-of-the-art equipment, with no technical prominence or machinery visible from the outside. Here, there will be enough time to give rise to daring experiments, to unleash unique creativity in the ancestral secrets of distillation.
Special care for the construction details of the lighthouse, designed as an inspiring high-tech laboratory, echoes and honors the exceptional craftsmanship of the Inn Land, which has become the epitome of Scottish whiskey houses looking to the future.