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ABSTRACT
The history of Grand Paris has been partly constructed around the markers provided in the major regional plans that have punctuated the development of the Greater Paris region, from the 1913 ‘Report for the enlargement of Paris’ to the 2009 ‘Grand Paris international consultation process’. By providing an epistemic framework for understanding the major regional plans, this article clearly posits that their history – i.e., both their succession and development – has a structuring impact on the ‘reality’ constituted by ‘Grand Paris’. The research we present here was conducted as part of the Inventing Grand Paris research programme with the objective of visualizing what we have termed the ‘depth of plans’, their contents and conflicts as well as their nature and temporality. To this end, a research device was created in the form of a digital ‘Atlas of Grand Paris plans’. By presenting the vast corpus of archives generated by the development of regional plans, this helps present a nuanced perspective and clarify the complexity of the metropolitan dynamics of Greater Paris. By looking at the possibilities it opens up for understanding the process, this article ultimately explores the way in which the digital humanities can contribute to the history of planning.
Acknowledgements
The Atlas of Grand Paris plans project is part of the Inventing Grand Paris research programme sponsored by LabEx Urban Futures/Université Paris Est. It is available at this https://www.inventerlegrandparis.fr/corpus/atlas-des-plans-du-grand-paris/. The project, which was initiated in 2017, has mobilized researchers and resources via a number of different formats and research processes. Several scientific presentations have helped to drive the reflection process in a number of different conferences and seminars : within LabEx Urban Futures research groups, namely ‘Uses of history and urban futures’, ‘Inventing Grand Paris’ and ‘Thinking urban through images’; and at the annual conference of Société Française d’Histoire Urbaine in January 2019.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 The ‘Grand Paris international consultation process’ commissioned ten architect-urbanist teams to show what ‘the post-Kyoto metropolis’ could look like. It was initiated by the French Ministry of Culture's Office of Architectural, Urban and Landscape Research with strong support from the national political authorities. Read the summary that appeared in Grand Pari(s): Consultation internationale pour l’avenir de la métropole parisienne. In 2009, an exhibition at Cité de l'Architecture et du Patrimoine, inaugurated by President Nicolas Sarkozy, presented the findings of the consultation. Read the ‘Speech by the President of the Republic, Inauguration of the exhibition on the Grand Pari(s) (‘Discours de Monsieur le Président de la République, Inauguration de l’exposition sur le Grand Pari(s)’). On 3 June 2010, the ‘Law framing the Grand Paris building project’ set up the Société du Grand Paris which would oversee the construction of the ‘Grand Paris Express’ metro.
2 Roseau, Le futur des métropoles, 143–56; Chauvel, “La construction territoriale d’un problème public en contexte multiniveaux”.
3 ‘L’espace tient du temps comprimé’, in Bachelard, La poétique de l’espace, 36.
4 Secchi and Vigano, Un projet pour le Grand Paris et la métropole de l’après Kyoto. La ville poreuse.
5 Geipel Andi, Grand Paris-Métropole douce. Hypothèses sur le paysage post-Kyoto.
6 ‘Declaration by President Nicolas Sarkozy concerning the deployment of the ’Grand Paris’ project.’ (‘Déclaration de Monsieur Nicolas Sarkozy, Président de la République, sur la mise en œuvre du projet du ‘Grand Paris’).
7 Edgerton, “From innovation to use,” 129.
8 Cohen and Lortie, Des Fortifs au Périf; Bellanger, Flonneau and Fourcaut, Paris/Banlieues; Bourillon and Fourcaut, Agrandir Paris; Voldman, Région parisienne.
9 Read Couzon, “La place de la ville dans le discours des aménageurs du début des années 1920 à la fin des années 1960.”
10 The large Bois de Boulogne and Bois de Vincennes wooded parks were attached to the city much later, in 1929 while the ‘zone’ of the fortifications was annexed from 1925 to 1930.
11 Préfecture de la Seine. Commission d’extension de Paris, ‘Aperçu historique’ (vol.1) and ‘Considérations techniques préliminaires : la circulation, les espaces libres’ (vol.2), 1913. Read from Bertrand, Bourillon, Jaquand, Inventer le Grand Paris. Relectures des travaux de la Commission d’extension de Paris.
12 Forestier, Grandes villes et systèmes de parcs.
13 Bellanger, “La traversée historique du Grand Paris”.
14 Maspero and Frantz, Les passagers du Roissy-Express. Diop, Nous. Regards du Grand Paris.
15 Corteville, Deguillaume, Aux origines du Grand Paris.
16 For a presentation of this project, go to www.inventerlegrandparis.fr. This project was initiated in 2012 by a collective of researchers composed of Emmanuel Bellanger, Frédéric Bertrand, Florence Bourillon, Laurent Coudroy de Lille, Corinne Jaquand, André Lortie, Clément Orillard, Frédéric Pousin, Nathalie Roseau and Loïc Vadelorge. In 2017, it integrated the LabEx Urban Futures (Futurs Urbains) program, resulting in the research website www.inventerlegrandparis.fr, produced by post-doctoral researcher Cédric Feriel and web designer Jérémie Bancilhon (GoOnWeb). Since then, the collective has expanded to include new researchers as the work developed.
17 Cf. the research program Archival City. Bridging Urban Past and Future, held by Gustave Eiffel University, https://archivalcity.hypotheses.org.
18 Beaujeu-Garnier and Bastié, Atlas de Paris et de la région parisienne.
19 Delouvrier, Preface to Atlas de Paris et de la région parisienne.
20 Van Damme, “Les atlas de ville et l’administration du passé métropolitain au XIXème siècle”.
21 Jacob, L’empire des cartes.
22 Didi-Huberman, Atlas ou le gai savoir inquiet.
23 Three student internships of four months each were financed over two academic years. The three undergraduates in the UPEM history master's programme entitled ‘Historical Diagnosis and Urban Planning’, directed by Loïc Vadelorge, were hosted at LATTS (one of the Université Paris Est research labs partnering the ‘Inventing Grand Paris’ research programme) and supervised by Cedric Fériel. Each student worked on a single plan: Abdennour Kermadi (2017, PADOG), Sara Azil (2018, PARP 1934), Amira Boumaaza (2018, PARP 1956).
24 Among the documents included in the Atlas are: ‘Cartes des transports du secteur ouest de la région parisienne’ (1933, Archives Nationales, file number 20030430/22), ‘Rapport et projet de vœux sur la réglementation des transports publics automobiles’ (1933, Archives Nationales, file number 20030430/23), the entire 1934 plan (Direction régionale Île-de-France (DRIEAT), file number 787 SE 2), as well as the public inquiry file (1935, Archives de Paris, file 85WR).
25 ‘Projet d'aménagement de la région parisienne pris en considération le 12 janvier 1956 par Mr. Roger Duchet, ministre de la reconstruction et du logement’ is composed of an 88-page printed document that presents the general development program (City of Paris/Historical Library reference number 25291), a global plan that presents the plans of the municipalities of the Paris region at a scale of 1:50,000 (reference number FM AT 4), and a central section made up of 4 thematic maps (reference number 2529), as well as technical appendices.
26 The plan was published in two versions: a complete version dating from 1960, signed by Michel Debré, Pierre Gibel, Pierre Sudreau, and another abridged version dating from 1962, with 62 color pages presenting a summary of the plan in three languages (English, German, and Spanish), then in French. Both versions are included in the Atlas: i.e., the complete version (153 p., Direction régionale Île-de-France, cote 75.0784SE.002_1), and the abridged version (Archives de Paris, cote 1934W 23).
27 The results of the various campaigns were summarised by Alessandro Panzeri, post-doctoral researcher, who designed the atlas matrix. Following this work, Yoko Mizuma, research engineer, carried out several complementary campaigns and worked on the final format of the atlas.
28 See Coudroy de Lille, Fernandez Agueda, “Entre enquête publique et consultation. Le Projet d'aménagement de la région parisienne de 1934 à 1937”.
29 Biographical statements were written by art historian Morgane Hamon.
30 It is important to stress the close collaboration with Jérémie Bancilhon of GoOnWeb, the engineer who designed and developed the website.
31 Cf. Clavert, Daniel, Fleckinger, Grandjean, Idmhand, “Histoire et humanités numériques : nouveaux terrains de dialogue entre les archives et la recherche”.
32 This hypothesis is put forward by Corinne Jaquand in her unpublished HDR thesis: ‘La théorie du Grand Paris dans l’entre-deux-guerres : Le plan d’aménagement de la Région parisienne (1919–1941)’, defended at Paris Belleville School of Architecture on March 17, 2022.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Frédéric Pousin
Frédéric Pousin is an Architect and a Research Director at the National Centre for Scientific Research (UMR AUSser 3329, Paris). He has been working extensively on urban landscape and the epistemological value of visuality in landscape planning and urbanism. Among his recent publications: Photoscapes. The Nexus between Photography and Landscape Design (Birkhauser 2019).
Nathalie Roseau
Nathalie Roseau is a professor of urbanism at École des Ponts ParisTech and research director at the Laboratory Technics, Territories ands Societies (UMR 8134 CNRS). Her researches which favor a historical perspective, focus on the dynamics of metropolitan transformation and the place of infrastructures, their temporalities and their representations. Last book: Le Futur des métropoles, Temps et infrastructure (Metispresses, 2022). Since 2017, Nathalie Roseau and Frédéric Pousin are responsible for the research programme Inventer le Grand Paris. Histoire croisée des métropoles (http://www.inventerlegrandparis.fr/) under the aegis of Labex Futurs Urbains (Université Paris Est).