Emergence and disappearance of a care facility.

This article examines the disappearance of the hospital institutions of Saint-Hilaire-du-Touvet. The notion of “de-heritagization” is first approached as a historical process involving the loss of the functional, territorial, and memorial value of these facilities. It is then analyzed through the lens of cultural attachments that arose around the abandoned site. Reflective accounts on the erasure process question the “regime of ruin” (Scott, 2012) and ultimately propose an alternative understanding of heritage as a “legacy without a will.”