Écluse n°1 Canal St Denis - Écluse du Pont de Flandre

The Écluse du Pont de Flandre holds a unique position as the command center for the entire Canal Saint-Denis. From this single control room, operators use advanced teleprocessing systems to monitor and pilot every other lock and swing bridge along the waterway. When this lock was reconstructed in the late nineteenth century, it achieved a major technical feat by combining what were previously four separate locks into one. This created a massive drop of nearly ten meters, which set a record for the highest shallow-lift lock in France at the time. To accommodate different types of vessels, the structure was built with two adjoining chambers of varying sizes. One chamber adheres to the precise Freycinet gauge, a standard set of dimensions established by law in eighteen seventy-nine to ensure barges could navigate the French canal network efficiently.