In the Middle Ages, the cloister garden of Royaumont could have been planted with medicinal herbs or left bare, as Cistercian austerity demands. In the 19th century, the nuns of the Sainte-Famille de Bordeaux demarcated the space into four parts around a basin. In 1912, the Goüin family, then owner of the abbey, commissioned landscape designer Achille Duchêne to redesign it into a French garden. In the central basin of the cloister, the visual artist Yann Toma created the permanent work Geysir Ouest-Lumière. At rest, the work is consigned to an underground cistern and the basin itself. When active, it transforms into a geyser that erupts five minutes after every hour and which rises to a height of 23 ft (7 m), symbolizing the cultural effervescence of the Royaumont Foundation