Geographia Polonica 2019, Volume 92, Issue 1, pp. 103-119 https://doi.org/10.7163/GPol.0139

INSTITUTE OF GEOGRAPHY AND SPATIAL ORGANIZATION POLISH ACADEMY OF SCIENCES www.igipz.pan.pl www.geographiapolonica.pl

RENOVATION AND MONUMENTALITY IN SOCIAL HOUSING: ANALYSIS OF DEMOLITIONS OF TOWERS AND SLABS FROM THE CASE STUDY OF THE URBAN AREA IN

Laëtitia Mongeard • Vincent Veschambre UMR 5600 Environnement Ville Société 18 rue Chevreul, 69007 Lyon: France e-mails: [email protected] • vincent.veschambre@mairie-.fr

Abstract Large buildings (towers, large slabs, etc.) dating from 1965 to 1974 are one of the five main targets of the Agence Nationale de la Rénovation Urbaine (French National Agency for Urban Renewal), which has used demolition as a privileged tool of intervention in large social housing complexes (grands ensembles) and de- graded condominiums since the early 2000s. Using a corpus of grands ensembles in the urban area of Lyon of interest to the national programme of urban renewal, we sought to verify the intentions displayed at the na- tional level; this urban area has indeed been at the forefront of concerns regarding ’city policy’ since the early 1980s and can be considered emblematic of national policies in this area. We simultaneously examined the methods used to demolish these towers and bars, from explosive demolition to mechanical means. Given their monumentality, these buildings are most restrictive at the technical level, and the means by which the demoli- tion occurs are viewed with the greatest attention, as decision-makers are most vigilant regarding their effects on the inhabitants and on public opinion. The demolition of these high-rise buildings can be analysed in light of technical and normative evolutions (security, recycling) as well as their political and ideological meanings.

Key words urban renewal • social housing • Lyon • monumentality • demolition • towers and slabs

Introduction urban and social transformation (Deboulet & Lelévrier 2014). Initiated in the United States (HUD 1996; In this paper, we examine this process Cuomo 1999), the renewal of social hous- in the context of France, the Western coun- ing districts is currently underway in much try with the greatest concentration of hous- of Europe (Dekker & Van Kempen 2004; ing estates (Dufaux & Fourcaut 2004). Tow- Droste et al. 2008) and involves a deep er blocks, which have been present in the 104 Laëtitia Mongeard • Vincent Veschambre suburbs of and Lyon since the 1930s and must be distinguished from the monu- prototypes, were partly inspired by the Amer- ment “as a sign and trace of something” ican ’skyscraper’ (Vieillard-Baron 2004). (De Portzamparc et al. 1999)4. In France, residential towers have been his- The tower and the slab imposed them- torically associated with social housing; two selves as not only the preferred form among innovations were the entrance towers of the modernist architects and planners hostile Quartier des Gratte-Ciel (’Skyscraper Dis- to the sprawl of standardised individual hous- trict’) in Villeurbanne (19 floors, 60 metres1) ing but also the product of an economic logic (Clémençon et al. 2004) and the five 15-sto- favouring the industrialisation of the building rey towers of the housing estate of La Muette sector in the context of a housing shortage; in the Paris suburb of Drancy – two sets under the influence of the Athens Charter, of buildings created for social housing in the the goal was to free up space on the ground, 1930s. to seek air and light, and to rationalise the Of all the buildings constructed using state production of social housing both vertically support during the period of housing estate (the crane) and horizontally (the crane track) development (1953-1973),2 tower blocks and (Vayssière 1988; Collectif5 2011). slab blocks are undeniably part of the novel The so-called ’Towers and Slabs’ circular landscaping created at the outskirts of cities. of 30 November 1971,6 which applied to small As summarised by the architect Jean-Patrick and medium towns, dealt a first blow to these Fortin, “Even an untrained eye can perceive, urban and architectural forms; it is said that standing out from the existing urban struc- “The character of this type of agglomeration ture and without any organic relation to it, risks being compromised by a form of con- an autonomous scattering of horizontal struction described in ordinary language buildings – slabs – rooted in the landscape as ’towers and slabs’. These buildings are by three or four towers” (Fortin 2005: 117). objectionable insofar as they disrupt an urban Fortin adds that “it is easy to understand why landscape that we must strive to preserve”. the word ’tower’, which recalls the imagery With the circular of 21 March 1973, Olivier of belfries and steeples, is used for 14-sto- Guichard extended the prohibition of the use rey buildings with 6 to 8 dwellings per floor” of this type of building for social housing to all (ibid.: 117). The diffusion of this architectural French agglomerations. form, minimally defined (in French) as a “con- The early discrediting of this architectural struction whose height far exceeds its width”,3 production was further exacerbated by the is linked to what has been described as the departure of the middle classes and their verticalisation (Frey 2011) or monumentali- replacement by precarious populations from sation of social housing during those years the 1970s onwards. While the desire to cre- (Veschambre 2011). This monumentalisation ate a clean slate regarding the issue was first is all the more spectacular because it is often expressed in the early 1980s, it was only after expressed on plateaux overlooking already twenty years of politique de la ville (urban urbanised valley bottoms. According to the policy) – i.e., state-driven territorial actions, architect Christian de Portzamparc, the ’monumental’ refers to “an effect of pres- 4 Le ’monumental’ renvoie à “un effet de présence ence in space, due to shapes, dimensions”, dans l’espace, dû aux formes, aux dimensions” et doit être distingué du monument “comme signe et trace de quelque chose” (De Portzamparc 1999). 1 http://lerizeplus.villeurbanne.fr/arkotheque/ 5 Agence d’urbanisme de l’aire métropolitaine ly- client/am_lerize/encyclopedie/fiche.php?ref=57 onnaise, 2011; Atlas du logement social du Grand-Lyon, [15 December 2018]. 2011. 2 According to Christine Mengin (1999), this corre- 6 Circular on forms of urbanisation adapted to me- sponds to approximately 6 million housing units. dium-sized towns, signed by the Minister of Equipment 3 http://www.le-tresor-de-la-langue.fr/ [15 Decem- and Housing Albin Chalandon and Secretary of State ber 2018]. for Housing Robert-André Vivien.

Geographia Polonica 2019, 92, 1, pp. 103-119 Renovation and monumentality in social housing: Analysis of demolitions of towers and slabs… 105 including housing rehabilitation and social symbolic value of the buildings. We hypoth- development in the so-called ’priority neigh- esise that the interventions carried out in the bourhoods’ – that the taboo on demolition context of urban renewal have implemented was finally overcome (Berland-Berthon 2009). a particular treatment of monumentality. This These high-rise buildings, which formed particular treatment can be analysed by con- the structure of most large housing estates sidering this building characteristic to decide and profoundly marked urban peripheries, whether or not to demolish it, but also, were indeed the first to be targeted in the in the case of demolition, by implementing early 2000s by those who promoted a new an unusual means of demolition. urban renewal policy. Our aim was to return to the ways of treat- ’Large’ buildings in urban renewal ing towers and large slabs in urban renewal programmes and discourses operations, given the characteristics implied by the scale of these buildings: a concentra- The tower (and the slab): A favoured target of urban renewal tion of a large number of dwellings, a call during the years 2000-2010 for restrictive techniques in case of interven- tion on the frame, and high visibility. Thus, “Ten years ago, the ANRU (National Agency through a corpus of neighbourhoods of social for Urban Renewal) was primarily the weight housing in the urban area of interest of Lyon of words, those of an urban planning min- to the National Urban Renewal Program, ister, Jean-Louis Borloo, who wanted the to which we have added some peripheral state and its partners to invest heavily via examples within the Pôle Métropolitain, an agency in relegated neighbourhoods, we sought to verify the intentions displayed in order to give meaning to the lives of mil- at the national level; since the beginning lions of residents. It was also, very quickly, of the 1980s, the urban area of Lyon has been the shock of images (Fig. 1), as the first tow- at the forefront of ’city policy’ concerns and ers and slabs were demolished to rebuild can be considered as emblematic of national a livable city”.8 policies. We formulate a hypothesis regarding a particular treatment of towers and slabs in the context of urban renewal operations because of their monumentality. Monumen- tality is defined as the “building a remark- able event in the ordinary landscape of an agglomeration”7 (Gravari-Barbas & Iosa 2006). To this physical dimension, it is gener- ally necessary to add a symbolic dimension associated with the notion of power (ibid). Figure 1. Explosive demolition of a slab It must be pointed out that this monumental- of approximately 300 housing units ity of large buildings is paradoxical: it is today Source: Michel Djaoui, Opac du Rhône – Lyon not associated with power and elites but with La Duchère, 2010 poor populations, a form of symbolic inversion took place during the latter decades. We will The ’weight of words’ was essential consider for our analysis the exceptional char- to instigating this large-scale policy. Estab- acter of the architectural dimensions and the lished by the Borloo law of 2003, the ANRU

8 Anne Peyricot, ANRU Director of Institutional 7 Construction d’un événement remarquable dans Relations, “Redonner du sens à la vie de millions le paysage ordinaire d’une agglomération (Gravari- d’habitants,” 12 March 2015, http://www.anru.fr/index. Barbas & Iosa 2006). php/fre/Actualites.

Geographia Polonica 2019, 92, 1, pp. 103-119 106 Laëtitia Mongeard • Vincent Veschambre specifically targeted, among the buildings Under the signed agreements (approxi- to be demolished as a priority, ’large’ build- mately 400 between 2003 and 2015), ings dating from the 1965-1974 period – the ANRU has systematically stressed its in particular, tower blocks now diagnosed stated demolition objectives and repeat- as being technically poorly adaptable and edly demanded an increase in the number sociologically ’badly inhabited’. of buildings to be demolished during negotia- With the recent launch of the new Nation- tions with local actors, local authorities, and al Urban Renewal Programme9 (also known social housing landlords. Not merely any type as PNRU2) in 2016, the time has come of building was targeted by the PNRU as part to assess the National Urban Renovation of its demolition component; rather, the fol- Programme (PNRU) instituted according lowing four targets were defined as priori- to the law of 1 August 2003. Both the plans ties13: have focused mainly on social housing dis- • “Old buildings dating from before 1948” tricts – i.e., the so-called ’priority districts’ (2% of the stock to be demolished); of the politique de la ville. As indicated by the • “Old economic programmes (emergency choice of the term ’renovation’10 the PNRU housing estates, Million programme, (2003-2016) distinguished itself from the family housing (LOPOFA), social reloca- previous politique de la ville both by the mas- tion programme (PSR))”, corresponding sive scale of investments made (EUR 45 bn to buildings that were produced at low between 2003 and 2015) and the emphasis cost and have therefore become obsolete placed on demolitions aimed at significantly or even antiquated (10% of the stock to be modifying urban and architectural forms demolished); inherited from the period of housing estate • “Ordinary buildings dating from the 1950- development (1955-1973). Within the frame- 1970 period” (10 to 30% of the stock to be work of agreements that brought together demolished); the central state, local authorities, and social • “Large buildings (tower blocks, large housing landlords, the ANRU wielded its influ- slab blocks, etc.) dating from the 1965- ence so that each of the funded programmes 1974 period” (40 to 50% of the stock to be would include the demolition of several hous- demolished). ing units under agreements signed for the dif- While this last category of buildings (slab ferent social housing districts. While far more and tower blocks) is the most important units were ultimately rehabilitated than were quantitatively, it is also central to the argu- demolished and rebuilt, demolition on such ments developed around the PNRU. At the a large scale is unprecedented. This priority office of a social housing landlord in Angevin, can be seen in the ANRU budget structure,11 an urban renewal officer who had followed which is in charge of managing the PNRU. the agreement negotiations reported that Indeed, the first entry in the budget concerns an ANRU manager had stated, “We don’t demolition.12 rehabilitate towers”.14

9 Established by the Law on City Programming and Tower blocks and large slab blocks Urban Cohesion, promulgated on 21 February 2014. in urban renewal discourse 10 In 2003, the term ’urban renovation’ supplanted that of ’urban renewal’ in official texts. Towers and the largest slab blocks are there- 11 This budget represents about one quarter of the fore among the priority targets of urban PNRU overall funding. 13 12 136,000 demolished units, 109,000 rebuilt units, See the 2003 finance bill: https://www.senat. 294,000 rehabilitated units. See Mémo PNRU les chif- fr/rap/a02-070-23/a02-070-2314.html [15 December fres 2015 – https://www.anru.fr/fre/Mediatheque/Pub- 2018]. lications/Memo-PNRU-2015-Les-chiffres [20 December 14 Interview with an urban renewal officer, Angers 2018]. Habitat, June 2005.

Geographia Polonica 2019, 92, 1, pp. 103-119 Renovation and monumentality in social housing: Analysis of demolitions of towers and slabs… 107 renewal, as has been clearly stated by the pus, we used Lexico3, a textometry software ANRU. The representations that underlie such developed by University Paris 3. prioritisation seem very deeply rooted and First, we must emphasise the prevalence are expressed in discourse (Genestier & Ves- of the rhetorical formula that associates ’tow- chambre 2017) that presents the social hous- ers and slabs’ – in the plural.17 In the speech- ing tower as the emblem of a decried urban es of ministers in charge of the politique de la form, namely, the large housing estate of the ville, ’slabs’ is associated with ’towers’ 7 times 1960s. The monumentality produced during out of 12; conversely, ’towers’ is associated that period was gradually associated, in the with ’slabs’ 7 times out of 15. In the specialist 1970s, with the social profile of impoverished press, which is presumably less likely to use populations, who often came from a postco- stereotyped vocabulary when describing lonial background and were unable to leave social housing districts, this rhetoric is still social housing initially construed as a transi- very present. In the corpus compiled from tory step in a residential trajectory. The dete- the journal Urbanisme, ’towers’ is associated rioration of social housing due to poor main- with ’slabs’ 21 times out of 54 and ’slabs’ with tenance by landlords and the first urban riots ’towers’ 21 times out of 45 – that is to say, led to the implementation of urban policies in almost half of the occurrences: in the early 1980s. The values traditionally • Thus, it appears that the expressions ’tow- associated with monumentality and vertical- ers and slabs’ or ’slabs and towers’ are suf- ity were thus reversed in the context of the ficient to designate a problematic urban social and material evolution of large-scale form: “Caucriauville is just towers and social housing estates. slabs!” (Jean Moulin, deputy mayor of Le Textual analysis conducted as part of an Havre and president of Alcéane, the city’s ANR-funded study on demolition in social social housing office, Le Figaro, 1 June housing districts15 allowed me to specify the 2007, p. 22). location and image of the tower in the dis- • According to some political actors, tow- course on urban renewal. The corpus con- ers and slabs are not mere urban forms, sists of speeches pronounced by ministers but a genuine ideological expression: “At in charge of the politique de la ville (2000- voting time, our opponents told us: ’You’re 2010), opinions issued by prefects concerning caught up in the ideology of towers and PNRU agreements (2005-2010), and articles slabs. What the French want is a house taken from the specialist or generalist press. and garden.’ (…) But do we have to keep The daily press corpus was compiled via all the slabs and towers? No, really, we’re a keyword search (using the French equiva- not Soviets!” (Yves Dauge, Socialist Party lent of ’urban renewal’, ’urban renovation’, senator, Libération, 17 December 2005). ’housing’, and ’social housing’) on the Fac- • Thus, simply uttering that hallowed expres- tiva website.16 To browse and study this cor- sion often enough makes demolition appear self-evident: “Nearly 1,200 social housing units were built in a hurry, in the 15 “Attentes et attendus en matière d’espace (AAE): form of slabs and 18-storey towers. Today, la démolition dans les grands ensembles” (director the urban renewal project involves the P. Genestier, 2010-2013). demolition of 101 housing units managed 16 For the national newspapers, I selected Libéra- by Logirep and SEMINO (Social Housing tion, Le Monde, Le Figaro, Humanité and La Croix, Office)” (Le Parisien, 6 December 2007, which cover most of the political spectrum. The daily re- gional press is represented by Le Progrès (Lyon region), p. 3). Le Parisien and Ouest-France. Depending on avail- ability, the corpus covers the period 1999-2010 (Le Monde, Le Figaro, Libération) or the period 2005-2010 17 The formula is much less common when the (Le Progrès, Le Parisien, l’Humanité, Ouest-France and terms are in the singular and when a specific building La Croix). is being discussed.

Geographia Polonica 2019, 92, 1, pp. 103-119 108 Laëtitia Mongeard • Vincent Veschambre

• Or argumentation seem pointless: “Pierre 1960s slab-and-tower architecture” (Le Bédier, in charge of housing in Mr. Chi- Figaro, 15 April 2006, p. 30). rac’s campaign team, pointed out that As the authors of the articles sometimes the President wanted to revive home own- explain, this is indeed a discursive matter: ership, promote rental investment, and • “Slabs and towers are declared to be fac- accelerate the demolition of slabs and tors of desocialisation” (Le Parisien, 6 Sep- towers in working-class housing estates” tember 2006). (Le Monde, 8 May 2002). These first explorations of the discourses • Sometimes, the nature of the problem gen- accompanying urban renewal illustrate the erated by these architectural and urban general tone; arguments in favour of demoli- forms is explained by the speed of execu- tion are not very developed because the mere tion, which implies bad design and poor mention of an urban and architectural form – workmanship: “We built slabs and tow- via the stereotype of ’towers and slabs’– suf- ers in a hurry” (Le Figaro, 9 November fices to condemn it. While the two terms ’tow- 2005).“The slabs and towers built in a hur- ers’ and ’slabs’ are commonly associated, the ry during the baby boom and economic term ’towers’ is more frequently used alone; growth period constitute yet another layer, we must now specify the word’s associations unfinished and poorly designed, which in the discourse on urban renewal. must now be cleaned up and refreshed” From the discourse relating to towers and (A. Grumbach, Le Figaro, 29 May 2000, slabs, we would now like to consider the treat- p. 12). ment that has been reserved for towers and • As is often the case (Gaudin 2013), the slabs during the urban renewal programme problems regarding social housing isola- in the Lyon metropolis. tion and concentration, which presuppose segregation, are also associated with Magnitude and issues of the these architectural forms and are high- demolitions of monumental lighted to justify urban renewal: “This set buildings: The example of towers and slabs isolated in the mid- of the Lyon agglomeration dle of residential areas, at the far end of Avenue Emile Dambel, will undergo To verify the actual nature of the objec- a profound change in the coming years” tives displayed in the context of the PNRU, (Le Parisien, 15 March 2007). we have taken the example of the agglomera- • “And the destruction of towers and slabs tion of Lyon18, within the Rhône-Alpes region, is expected to ease the situation in dis- the second largest French region (after Paris) tricts with a high concentration of social in terms of the number of districts concerned housing” (Libération, 27 May 2000). with urban renewal. With an industrial tra- Several commentators speak in terms dition and today economically diversified, of representations. While specifying that the the metropolis of Lyon was an experimental image of towers and slabs is highly negative, region for the construction of large buildings they also recall that it is constructed: of social housing (’grands ensembles’); within • “These tower and slab districts are now the framework of the Courant Plan (1953- the urban archetypes of exclusion. But 1955)19, two of the first six large buildings, this was not always the case” (Libération, 12 January 1999). 18 Since 2016, the region like most other French Conversely, it can then be deconstructed: regions has changed its scope to include the former Au- • “The social housing building will be trans- vergne region. We remain on the scope prior to 2016 formed in the coming months. By the same under which the PNRU started. 19 Initiated by the Minister of reconstruction Eu- token, it will be shown to be worth more gène Claudius-Petit, this plan aimed to accelerate the than the sad reputation that often plagues industrialization of the building sector through the

Geographia Polonica 2019, 92, 1, pp. 103-119 Renovation and monumentality in social housing: Analysis of demolitions of towers and slabs… 109 and particularly, the largest number of them, while considering the very general definition -Parilly, were built there. This agglomera- (exceptional dimensions, potential symbolic tion was also the first to be affected by the value) and what the actors of this policy them- social movements of the early 1980s, which selves designate as monumental. We also led to the adoption of a so-called ’city policy’ referred to thresholds, when we had access targeting social housing neighbourhoods. to the quantitative data. The Minguettes district in Vénissieux, in east- To realise this inventory and specify the ern Lyon, was the scene of clashes between nature and extent of demolitions in the ANRU young people and police officers in the sum- neighbourhoods of the Lyon area, we used the mer of 1981 and then riots in March 1983 fol- website of the ARRA (Regional Association lowing police violence; these events prompt- of low-income housing in Rhone-Alpes), which ed the President of the Republic to visit and collects information produced by social land- induce the launch of the ’city policy’. lords. In the Greater Lyon area, where many We built a corpus (cf. Tab. 1) using all the of the districts concerned are concentrated, neighbourhoods contracted with the Nation- we were able to supplement this information al Agency for Urban Renewal since 2003. with the help of the Atlas du logement locatif In this context, we were interested in the et social du Grand-Lyon (Atlas of Rental and presence of monumental towers and slabs, Social Housing of Grand-Lyon) (2011). The

Table 1. Inventory of the demolitions in neighbourhoods in agreement with ANRU according to building type

Number of monu- Number of monu- Number of towers Number of slabs District mental towers to be mental bars to be to be demolished to be demolished demolished demolished

Bourgoin - Jallieu - Champ 5100 Fleuri Bron-Terraillon 1 1 2 0 Bron-Parilly0011 Lyon-La Duchère0088 Lyon-Mermoz0062 Rillieux-la-Pape 441 (partial)1 Ville nouvelle Saint Etienne 2 1 4 0 Montreynaud Saint-Fons Arsenal 1 1 0 0 Vénissieux Minguettes8800 Fontaine sur Saône 0032 La Norenchal Vaulx en Velin 1 1 4 1 St Priest 0041 Centre-ville Villeurbanne (Les Brosses)0020 Total 22 17 35 16 Sources: ARRA, ANRU, Atlas of Social Housing

support of some pilot operations.

Geographia Polonica 2019, 92, 1, pp. 103-119 110 Laëtitia Mongeard • Vincent Veschambre local press (Le Progrès) and the Moniteur20 of 16 floors (or 54 metres). Exactly 9 years at the national level have allowed me to earlier, the first two towers were destroyed, update the information available in these ref- marking the launch of the ’new neighbour- erence documents. hood of Velette-Balcons de Sermenaz’ pro- Definition of ’monumental towers’: towers ject, which will be characterised by the of more than 50 meters, more than 10 sto- extension of green spaces and afforestation. reys or 100 dwellings. Concomitant with these two demolitions, Definition of ’monumental bars’: slabs artistic devices were put in place22 to prepare of more than 150 dwellings. the populace for demolition and to leave Thus this overview will verify and evaluate traces. In 2015-2016, artists’ studios (’around the scale of large building demolitions within the towers’) were installed ’on the fourth the framework of the ANRU. How did the floor of the Lyautey tower, a symbol of a city national directives translate into these areas that is transforming itself’23. Of the 7 towers of the Lyon region? present before 2007 in the New Town, only 3 remain. The monumental: At La Duchère, in Bron-Parilly, Fontaine- A target actually privileged sur-Saone and Vaulx-en-Velin in part, monu- mental slabs were first demolished. We can Monumentality was primarily targeted speak of structural effects in Bron-Parilly, one by demolitions in half of the neighbourhoods of the first ’grands ensembles’ built in France, studied (7 out of 13). The evocation of the dif- with the asserted choice of monumentality. ferent cases of demolition of the agglomera- This is not the case for the other three dis- tion that follows highlights a typology of build- tricts, within which the monumental slabs ings taken into account: sometimes essentially have been the subject of special treatment. the towers, sometimes essentially the slabs, In Mermoz, district of Lyon, the demoli- sometimes the two forms indefinitely. tions focused on slabs (Fig. 2). The contrast In Rillieux-la-Pape, Vénissieux, and Saint- between the two forms is particularly marked; Fons, towers were the target of almost all the the largest slab, which was monumental and demolitions. The case of Vénissieux is specific was located at the entrance of the district in the sense that towers predominate there; and of the city upon arriving from the east, this was not the case in Rillieux and Saint- was demolished in addition to other slabs. Fons, which were chosen specifically. The towers and other slabs have been reha- In Saint-Fons (district of Arsenal), the only bilitated, renamed, and have been the sub- building to be demolished was a 10-storey ject of social support for inhabitants. In this tower that housed ’The Rose Garden’ man- neighbourhood, demolitions of buildings were aged by ADOMA, formerly SONACOTRA. not communicated to the populace, even Since the 1960s, this home has welcomed that of the largest slab, which was gradually foreign workers, especially Maghrebians. This demolished. Only the demolition of the over- demolition, accompanied by a work of memo- pass of the district was highly publicised. ry, did not give rise to visible reactions21. At La Duchère, district of Lyon, the situ- In Rillieux-la-Pape, in the ’grand ensemble’ ation is particularly clear; the large slabs, known as the ’New Town’, the eastern part which are very visible from a distance has not had towers since February 2017 and on the plateau overlooking the Saône, have the blasting of Lyautey 1 and 2, two towers been gradually erased from the landscape.

20 Through a press review on the years 2014 and 22 In 2008, the association Microphone has 2015. produced a DVD composed of words of inhabitants 21 Cf. https://www.annydulac.fr/ateliers-photogra- entitled “I had the dream view”. phiques/travail-de-m%C3%A9moire-autour-d-une- 23 Press kit: presentation of urban projects and the d%C3%A9molition/ Consulted on 10 September 2015. Horizons Croisés program, GPV Rillieux-la-Pape, 2016.

Geographia Polonica 2019, 92, 1, pp. 103-119 Renovation and monumentality in social housing: Analysis of demolitions of towers and slabs… 111

Figure 2. Demolition by nibbling of a slab in Mermoz, Lyon (2013)

The most emblematic was the ’slab of 1000’, of design24. A referendum was finally organ- which was actually the alignment of three ised in the neighbourhood, which decided bars comprising nearly 1000 homes. The in favour of demolition and was considered slabs were successively demolished in 2005, preferable by local authorities consider- 2010, and 2015 during high-profile demoli- ing the socially degraded situation of the tion operations. The only tower in the neigh- building’s co-ownership. On November 24, bourhood has been the subject of heritage 2011, the tower’s cave-in was orchestrated recognition. Signed by the designer of the as a major city event La Duchère district, François-Régis Cottin, In Bourgoin-Jallieu, four small towers the ’panoramic tower’ remains the district’s of the Champfleuri Group 1, or 116 dwellings, main landmark. were demolished. However, it was the largest In five other neighbourhoods in the region, tower, the Chopin (99 dwellings), described demolitions affected both large and small as the emblematic building of Bourgoin25, buildings. However, in all cases, it is the that attracted the most attention; the les- demolitions of towers and large slabs that sor accompanied this demolition with a col- have been focused on, with the publication lection of memoirs (’Chopin’s life book’), and of press articles and videos available on the the city decided to keep the Chopin toponym Internet. as the name of the street created following The demolition that invoked the most emo- the demolition. tion was undoubtedly that in Saint-Etienne of the tower Plein Ciel (’full sky’) of the district of Montreynaud. Built in 1972, this 18-storey 24 “This symbolic tower of a city that makes Saint- Etienne, a city different from the others, must not be de- tower, 64 metres high, marked the northern stroyed. To have a reflection on the urban and not piece- bypass of Saint-Etienne, with a characteris- meal this tower of the district of Montreynaud, built tic silhouette due to its rooftop water tower. in the 70s should not be destroyed and used for other Many voices were heard, particularly in the purposes. This tower should have been the most posh tower in Saint-Etienne with such a beautiful panorama. cultural field, in favour of another outcome Sign if you are against this destruction.” http://www. (Kaddour 2015). A petition was circulated not- forez-info.com/actualite/divers/12342-saint-etienne-la- ing the social nature of the diagnosis involved; tour-plein-ciel-peut-elle-disparaitre.html [20 December inhabited by wealthy social classes, this tower 2018]. 25 http://www.opac38.fr/Nos-metiers/Renouvelle- could have become one of the architectural ment-Urbain/BOURGOIN-JALLIEU-Le-quartier-Champ- emblems of Saint-Etienne, a UNESCO city fleuri consulted on 10 September 2015.

Geographia Polonica 2019, 92, 1, pp. 103-119 112 Laëtitia Mongeard • Vincent Veschambre

In downtown Saint-Priest, the demolition Of the 13 neighbourhoods in our corpus, affected various types of buildings. Again, only one, that of Les Brosses in Villeurbanne, it was the demolition of the bar of the Alps, was not affected by the demolition of large a degraded condominium, that caught peo- buildings. ples’ attention. This overview of urban renewal in neigh- In Bron Terraillon, a tower and several bourhoods affected by the intervention small slabs were demolished. These demoli- of ANRU in the Lyon region confirms the tions were relatively discrete and at the scale displays at the national level. More than half of the agglomeration. The strongest emotion of the demolished buildings (33 out of 57) fall in the neighbourhood concerned the tower under the category ’large towers and bars’, demolition. The tallest and most visible build- and as we have just reviewed, in almost all the ing in the area affected by urban renewal, neighbourhoods studied, demolitions of this the Caravelle Tower, a degraded condomini- type of building affirm that public authorities um, was demolished due to a concentration intervene and that profound transformations of social problems, including drug traffick- are in progress. ing. The tower demolition caused tensions Demolition is an excellent indicator of the in the neighbourhood, involving the people depreciation of architectural and urban who previously occupied the building’s lobby forms, and, by the same token, of the inhab- to former occupants dissatisfied with their itants associated with them. For Pinçon and relocation. Pinçon-Charlot, “The somewhat tragic fate In Vaulx-en-Velin, medium-sized slabs of these social housing towers or slabs that were also demolished (Fig. 3). The pres- can be seen disappearing via implosion ence of many slabs can lead to trivialisation in a cloud of dust is indicative of the asset of their form, which then becomes what value of this form of housing: nil” (Pinçon Jean-Pierre Frey calls ’ordinary monumental- & Pinçon-Charlot 2002: 323). ity’ (Frey 2011). This banalisation was offset by regrouping the demolitions; thus, the three Demolishing large structures bars were demolished simultaneously, and Exacerbated technical issues two more will be demolished together under the NPNRU. The event mobilised only the In most cases, monumentality is taken into inhabitants of the neighbourhood. account in the decision to demolish or conserve

Figure 3. Waiting for the demolition with explosive of three slabs in Vaulx-en-Velin (2016)

Geographia Polonica 2019, 92, 1, pp. 103-119 Renovation and monumentality in social housing: Analysis of demolitions of towers and slabs… 113 buildings. This frequent feature of towers and slabs also plays an important role in the method used to demolish these buildings, giv- ing demolition a particular function. Indeed, the disappearance of towers and bars in the neighbourhoods targeted by the PNRU goes through the stage of the demolition site, whose technical aspects represent important issues that are indirectly political. Demolition activity is now carried out in France according to two main techniques: nibbling and explosives. Nibbling – also called ’mechanical demolition’26 – involves demol- ishing the structure of the building using a mechanical shovel, on a relatively long arm, equipped with a head adapted to the material to be demolished (Fig. 4). In the case of concrete structures, the arm is equipped with a clip that ’bites’ the building to incur a gradual fall. The explosive technique con- sists of piercing the walls of the building – Figure 4. Demolition by nibbling of a tower at specific points, defined by a calculation in Bron-Terraillon, Bron (2013) involving the building characteristics – and depositing in these holes explosive charges, The demolitions carried out in the context which, when activated at the same time, of urban renewal are unique cases because allow the building to implode. the relatively frequent monumentality of the Of these two choices, nibbling is much buildings to be demolished raises a ques- more common, as only a few national compa- tion regarding the choice between these two nies are qualified to carry out explosive dem- techniques. In addition, nibbling becomes, for olitions. The major reason for the infrequent a large building, very expensive and poten- use of explosive demolition is the cost of such tially technically impossible. Indeed, the nib- an operation, which requires expertise and bling technique is subject to a technical limi- very specific materials. When interviewed,27 tation: the maximum possible building height, the manager of a demolition firm explained which depends on existing excavators owned the scarcity of explosive demolitions by the by national or European demolition com- fact that they can be used only for “important panies. This limitation echoes that in effect buildings, more than 200 dwellings and more during the construction of these buildings: than 5 floors”. Hence, demolition is generally the height of the cranes. An engineer who carried out by nibbling, a technique also char- was interviewed estimated that the maxi- acterised by its discretisation, moving in the mum height for a nibbling demolition today direction of often-ignored operations and is 50 metres, knowing that very few such carried out silently upstream of development high excavators exist and that moving them projects. – from a company’s headquarters with dis- posers – represents a considerable expense. The height limit also relates to safety; in the context of a mechanical demolition, the shov- 26 National Union of Demolition Contractors, www. sned.fr, consulted on 20 December 2017. el must be located at a distance equal to half 27 Interview conducted at the company’s headquar- the height to ensure the safety of the driver ters, October 15, 2014. in the event of falling materials. A safety

Geographia Polonica 2019, 92, 1, pp. 103-119 114 Laëtitia Mongeard • Vincent Veschambre perimeter must also be put in place around of non-hazardous waste sent to landfill sites the machine. A high-rise building must there- by 30% by 2020 and 50% by 2025). fore have an available space as large as half To achieve these objectives, the demoli- its height in the vicinity. tion is organised in a succession of steps However, this relative insulation of the to remove the elements of the second work. building is also necessary to a caving opera- Dangerous materials are removed first tion. The urban morphology of the neigh- by depollution. Next, recyclable materials bourhoods of large complexes also makes or materials that would harm the quality it a favourable criterion related to the pos- of rubble are removed during the building sible choice between nibbling and caving; the cleaning. During these stages, waste is sort- discontinuity of the structure of large build- ed and sent to suitable channels, after which ings is suitable for demolition by explosives. the empty building can be demolished, giving Moreover, the more numerous cases of these way to rubble and recoverable inert waste, ’monumental’ demolitions have led compa- depending on the materials in question. nies to create a new technique: clipping. This The buildings demolished as part of the technique involves gradually demolishing PNRU are mostly concrete, having been built up and down the building, up to a certain after the war. These buildings represent par- height to finish nibbling. This can be done ticularly interesting materials; the concrete by shovelling or sawing at the top of the build- can be easily recoverable after crushing, ing; the concrete blocks are sawn and then to be used either as an embankment founda- lowered one after the other. tion to restore the site or as a road under- This last technique, created to cope with lay. The issue of waste management, how- monumentality, is an indicator of the impact ever, is exacerbated by the monumentality of the demolitions of large buildings on the of buildings, which corresponds to very large economic sector of demolition. Another indi- quantities of waste. As an illustration, a 7-sto- cator is the strong structuring of the eco- rey bar containing 233 flats corresponds nomic sector, with many companies special- to approximately 27,000 tons of inert waste izing in demolition (while previously doing when a truck carries 20 tons of material per other activities) or even specializing in explo- load. The demolition of monumental build- sive demolition. In this sense, the demolition ings requires extensive preparation to the of large buildings seems to play in France, building itself and in terms of rubble manage- as part of PNRU, a role similar to that of their ment: rubble must be sorted and broken into construction in the building industry in the smaller pieces (Fig. 5) before being crushed post-war period. on site – allowing it to be used to restore the site or to be evacuated to a recycling plat- Producing large volumes form, where it is transformed and sold for of waste new uses.

Another concrete aspect of demolition, name- A very visible demolition mitigated ly, demolition waste, is highlighted when or underlined tearing down large complexes, particularly a ’monumental’ building. Demolition prac- The demolition of slabs and towers, as well tices are largely framed by the issue of waste as other monumental buildings, requires produced (Mongeard & Santos 2016). The a significant amount of time due to its dura- law of Energy Transition for Green Growth tion and magnitude, either due to the demoli- of 18 August 2015 supports the objec- tion technique or merely waste management. tives set by the 2008 European Framework Demolition of slabs and towers is essentially Directive and imposes non-hazardous waste a very visible demolition, whereas ordinary recovery objectives (to reduce the amount demolition is generally invisible. The two

Geographia Polonica 2019, 92, 1, pp. 103-119 Renovation and monumentality in social housing: Analysis of demolitions of towers and slabs… 115

Figure 5. Rubble after demolition with explosive, Lyon La Duchère (2015) main techniques mentioned – nibbling and of very large buildings. This speed may caving – are therefore allowed for these be sought when there are site constraints types of buildings, and the choice between with a high impact on local life. Caving is the them appears to correspond more to politics solution chosen for the demolitions at the than to the desired visibility desired of the Mas du Taureau in Vaulx-en-Velin in 2016, operation. and the inconvenience to public transport Interviews with demolition professionals traffic was thus reduced over time. Caving in the Lyon area (social landlords, primary was also the solution chosen at La Duch- contractors, and demolition companies) ère in Lyon in 2015. Overall, the choice also between 2012 and 2016 allowed us to exam- depends on how one wants to manage time ine the parameters considered when choos- at the building site. In caving, the time allot- ing the demolition technique to be imple- ted for sorting and crushing is more impor- mented in the framework of operations of the tant, and the demolition moment paralyses PNRU. The first criterion, imposed by the con- the entire neighbourhood and potentially ditions of nibbling and caving, is technical: for areas beyond it. At La Duchère, traffic on the 10 stories and under, nibbling is preferred, motorway near the neighbourhood had as it is easy to implement; for 15 stories and to be interrupted at the time of the explo- higher, explosives are preferred. Between sion because the bar could be seen from these two heights, a structural study is nec- the highway. On the other hand, nibbling, essary to evaluate the most appropriate which takes longer, allows for a modulation technique while also considering economic of time at the site, for example, by interrupt- factors. Thus, beyond 50 metres, nibbling ing the demolition to proceed to a first round is impossible, and caving is often required; of rubble removal. this solution is to the detriment of clipping Given the absence of criteria providing because it represents an expenditure but also an obvious choice between the two tech- entails huge risks for workers and the area niques, the political aspect, relative to the surrounding the site. ’target’ population one wishes to witness The context of urban renewal may also the demolition and to the image that the make it necessary to act quickly to free space local political powers wish to provide to its for new constructions or to quickly achieve intervention, appears important in this so-called ’sensitive’ demolitions. Insofar context of visible demolition. Caving is fre- as depollution and cleaning are equivalent, quently associated with a desire to highlight caving is faster than nibbling in the case the dynamism and voluntarism of these local

Geographia Polonica 2019, 92, 1, pp. 103-119 116 Laëtitia Mongeard • Vincent Veschambre political powers. Its impact via media cov- erage can be national, or at least regional. Rebuilding on a human scale to end Nibbling, however, is associated with a will- monumentality ingness for discretion, which can also be pre- Demolition is not always followed by recon- sented as a respectful approach for the popu- struction, especially when the aim is to remove lation during a contested demolition, as was housing deemed repulsive and difficult the case with Bron-Parilly. to rent in cities and regions in the grip of an As for the effect on the local population, economic crisis. Demolition can also be an supporters of caving denounce the ’wallpa- occasion to initiate the much-evoked opening per’ effect of nibbling, which exposes the up, which entails building a street or a tram interior of homes. Thus, in Vaulx-en-Velin, the line to create a perspective in a housing demolition of bars with 8-10 floors was per- estate construed as inward-looking. In cases formed using explosives to avoid this gradual of reconstruction, the structure produced disappearance of old housing. Supporters in place of the structure destroyed is implic- of nibbling highlight the trauma caused itly indicative of what ’good’ social housing by the explosion (Fig. 1). architecture and a ’good’ city ought to be. Of lesser importance than the technique Numerous comments expressed or reported of demolition is the choice regarding crush- in the daily press or in institutional brochures ing the materials on the building site or not, similarly favour small-scale housing: which – considering the large quantities • “To replace these towers built in the 1970s involved – carries a political connotation. and gradually deserted by their inhabit- Crushing on-site allows one to use materials ants, Opac plans to install small buildings to restore the site or sell them to neighbour- of up to two floors” (“Minguettes: La tour ing sites – which occurs frequently under the 44 est tombée hier à midi pour laisser ANRU. This practice reduces the amount place à de petits immeubles,” 20 minutes, of waste discharged and reduces and distrib- 11 June 2004). utes the flows necessary for their removal Additionally, in Venissieux, a similar type over time. On-site crushing, however, is only of strategy was presented: possible in a large space – for the crushing • “The space left vacant by these two demo- plant on the one hand and storage man- litions will be used for the construction agement of materials on the other – and of detached houses and small buildings.”28 is a nuisance for the neighbourhood since In Rillieux-la-Pape, the Large City Project it involves longer work hours, noise, vibration, issued a communiqué, entitled “New Urban- and crushing dust. In fact, while the demo- ism and Architecture”, which read as follows: litions carried out in the case of the ANRU • “To diversify the building silhouettes are often performed in areas that would of the new City, differential heights were allow crushing, one can choose to remove reduced, and lower buildings were built. the materials to spare the inhabitants of the In addition to the ground floor, buildings neighbourhood. have no more than 4 or 5 floors, each with We hypothesised that monumentality a setback terraced apartment” (GPV Ril- had been the subject of special treatment lieux-la-Pape, Le Bottet, brochure collected in urban renewal operations by the imple- in September 2016). mentation of out-of-the-ordinary demolition. Small scale is associated with many posi- If this hypothesis is confirmed, it is for techni- tive values, as can be seen at the regional cal reasons, which entail a long project, and because the technical stakes allow a media- tised operation, which involves a political 28 http://www.batiactu.com/edito/destruction-un- decision in all cases. symbole-a-venissieux-13574.php consulted on 10 Sep- tember 2015.

Geographia Polonica 2019, 92, 1, pp. 103-119 Renovation and monumentality in social housing: Analysis of demolitions of towers and slabs… 117 or national level by drawing on the already allows one to observe that this characteristic mentioned press corpus. of monumentality is a factor in the decision- In the case of the Romans, small scale making process leading to or circumventing is a guarantee of recovered ’human warmth’: demolition. • “In its place, there will also be a private Even if monumentality is not a sufficient developer programme with 30 housing criterion, it is considered in most cases units. Smaller and therefore more wel- regarding the decision to demolish or, in con- coming buildings with high environmental trast, to preserve buildings in a district. The quality” (Stéphane Milhomme, France Bleu demolished buildings are most often monu- Drôme-Ardèche, 22 January 2015). mental buildings; in contrast, the few rec- More broadly, small scale is associated ognised and valued buildings, such as the with ’human scale’: Panoramic Tower at La Duchère in Lyon, are • “The aim is not only to replace degraded large structures that can be used as visual tower and slab blocks with human-scale landmarks throughout the city. housing but also to turn these stigma- Monumentality is also considered in the tised districts into ordinary pieces of the choice of demolition technique. While the city” (Tonino Serafini, “Casser les ghettos,” demolitions carried out upstream of develop- Libération, 29 October 2003). ment projects are frequently executed by nib- By the same token, ’human scale’ is ’urban bling and with discretion, those in the frame- scale’: work of the PNRU refer to other conditions • “Recovering the urban dimension of Aix- of intervention and publicisation. The large les-Bains in the ’Sierroz-Franklin’ districts, size of the targeted buildings makes it pos- especially in terms of building size, social sible to demolish using explosives or even mix, and connection with other districts; necessitate the use of clipping. In a national opening up, image change.”29 or regional context that promotes such demo- Associated with privacy and individual litions, worksites on monumental buildings property, ’the small’ scale – whether small represent a privileged medium of commu- communities or detached houses – is thus nication, giving rise to a wide dissemina- very clearly mobilised by those who promote tion of images. The extraordinary character urban renewal; this scale is also opposed of these buildings leads to extraordinary dem- to the image of gigantism and dehumanisa- olition operations, which are at the origin tion linked to these social housing towers. of a structuring of the demolition profession, As early as the circular of 30 November similar to what transpired in the construction 1971, Minister Chalandon maintained that field when producing ’grands ensembles’. it was necessary “to take into account the The challenge of these interventions is ulti- rather fundamental aspiration (of) inhabit- mately to remove, with a few exceptions, ants to live in individual houses or in buildings the most emblematic buildings of the period of reasonable dimensions”. of construction of large complexes and trivi- alise these neighbourhoods of social housing. Conclusion As we have seen, reconstruction carried out following the demolition of towers and bars The discourse of urban renewal is explicitly systematically avoids monumentality. aimed at the towers and slabs built after the Second World War. These architectural forms Editors‘ note: are often monumental. The case of Lyon Unless otherwise stated, the sources of tables and figures are the authors‘, on the basis of their own research. 29 http://www.eco-obs.net/eco-obs/index. php?option=com_content&id=17&Itemid=2 consulted on 10 September 2015.

Geographia Polonica 2019, 92, 1, pp. 103-119 118 Laëtitia Mongeard • Vincent Veschambre

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© Laëtitia Mongeard • Vincent Veschambre Article first received • February 2018 © Geographia Polonica Article accepted • December 2018 © Institute of Geography and Spatial Organization Polish Academy of Sciences • Warsaw • 2019