France’s new Minister of Culture didn’t get off to a great start when she approved the ’relocation-reconstruction’ of the Institut Curie’s Pavillon des Sources (see article)... But while the future of this Parisian landmark is now very much in doubt, the number of issues on which she will be able to redeem herself is considerable. And lovers of Paris will be keeping a particularly close eye on her actions. Needless to say, if she were to disappoint, she would severely compromise the hope of an alternating executive in the capital, which would be disastrous news.
Let’s start with a project that we feel is now essential, and which the association Sites & Monuments summed up very well in a letter it sent to the Minister and posted on its website. We can no longer content ourselves with reacting a posteriori to the countless attacks on Parisian heritage. We need to give ourselves the means to protect the city as a whole, as is the case in many communes in France, thanks to the establishment of remarkable heritage sites, which have the advantage of providing very broad protection, even before the urban fabric is attacked, and of protecting the interiors of buildings. This does not, of course, prevent all vandalism, as we see almost every day, but it does reduce the number of cases.
Paris has only had two protected areas since the law initiated by André Malraux was created in the 1960s, which is clearly not enough. We are therefore asking the Minister, alongside Sites & Monuments and the other associations that will be joining her, to create several protected sectors so that the whole of Historic Paris benefits from the protection it deserves. Proposals will be made shortly, and we will be joining them.
Because several of the serious heritage attacks that have threatened the capital or will threaten it in the coming months and years could have been reduced if such sectors were finally created :
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- 1. Jacques-Denis Antoine (1733-1801)
Former hospital of La Rochefoucauld, 1780
Photo: Didier Rykner - See the image in its page
- the courtyard of the Bel-Air which we discussed here (see article) should be protected by an outstanding heritage site in the Faubourg Saint-Antoine,
– the Art Deco building on the rue Gay-Lussac, now destroyed (see article), would of course have been included in a safeguarded sector of the Montagne Saint-Geneviève [1]. In the same way as the many other buildings from the 1930s that are still to be found in this area,
– the former La Rochefoucauld hospital (ill. 2), which we have already discussed here (see article), and whose garden is still under threat of partial subdivision should be included in a safeguarded sector that would take in the Observatoire and Denfert-Rochereau districts.
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- 1. The cow barn of the Visitation convent in Paris, threatened with destruction
Photo: Sites & Monuments - See the image in its page
We now expect the Minister to protect the Visitation monastery, which is threatened with a densification operation that will result in particular in the demolition of its chapel and cow barn described by Émile Zola (ill. 2). We haven’t gone into this heritage scandal - there are so many that we unfortunately can’t cover them all - but we would refer you to the Sites & Monuments website, which has done a great deal of work on the subject; and let’s be serious for a minute: we’re not talking about moving these buildings, but about saving them and the garden, which will also be under threat.
We now expect the Minister to prevent the Archbishop’s Square and the Deportation Memorial from being denatured (see our articles). Despite unanimous opposition to these projects, the City of Paris has still not given up.
We now expect the Minister to prevent the City of Paris from denaturing the Place de la Concorde as it has been doing for many years (see our articles); more generally, the Ministry of Culture must reach agreement with the Ministry of Ecology to severely limit the incessant occupation of historic monument sites and listed sites by events that destroy them. It is impossible to continue handing over the Place de la Concorde to events such as fashion shows, job fairs or sporting competitions.
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- 3. A lawn from the Champ-de-Mars
(as at 29 August 2023)
Photo: Didier Rykner - See the image in its page
We now expect the minister - who is also mayor of the 7th arrondissement - to put a stop to the destruction of the Champ-de-Mars (see our articles); not only has it been occupied for years by the ephemeral Grand Palais (it has to go on schedule! ), but it is also excessively given over to a multitude of events (concerts, horse shows, fan zones, etc.) that weaken its trees, destroy its lawns and make the area uninviting (ill. 3). We should also point out that the project to create a remarkable heritage site for the Champ-de-Mars, which is at the heart of a district of major interest and great homogeneity, is also necessary, and that according to our information the mayor of the arrondissement is in favour of it...
We now expect the Minister to look into the future of the Hôtel Mezzara (see our articles), where the second call for projects was fortunately unsuccessful, and to impose the only solution that makes sense, i.e. the creation of a Guimard museum that benefits from sponsorship that would enable the monument to be restored and the museum to be created without the State having to contribute. That this solution has not yet been chosen is an inexplicable mystery.
We know that the Minister is not in control of the Notre-Dame project, but we are nonetheless waiting for her to monitor the archaeological excavations being carried out in and around the cathedral to ensure that the recent destruction that took place there is not repeated (see our article). And we are waiting, even if it is at the level of the President of the Republic, for her to try to persuade him to abandon his disastrous project to replace the stained glass windows by Viollet-le-Duc (we urge those who have not done so to sign our petition), and to continue beyond the reopening of the cathedral with the excavations in the transept that would make it possible to discover the rood screen sculptures that are still buried there (see our article).
From now on, we expect the Minister of Culture to do what her predecessors did so little of: protect Paris’s heritage.
There are other national and regional projects on which we expect the Minister to take action, and we’ll be talking about them in a future article.