Photo : Jibi44 / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)
Donjon Lacataye
The Donjon Lacataye is in Mont-de-Marsan, in the Landes. Despite its name, it is not strictly a keep but two adjoining fortified houses of shelly limestone, built in the late 13th or early 14th century. Crenellations were added in the 16th century. Its construction is undocumented; it is generally attributed to Marguerite de Moncade, around 1313.
The two houses guarded the east side of the town, near the Midou, and served as a lookout post. The governor of the castle of Nolibos moved into one of them in 1560. Bequeathed to the town in 1860, the building became a barracks and then had civilian uses; the town's first radio broadcast was made here in 1925.
The name Lacataye dates only from the late 1960s. Registered as a historic monument in 1942 and owned by the town, the building has housed since 1968 the Despiau-Wlérick museum, devoted to figurative sculpture of the first half of the 20th century.
