Grands Projets of François Mitterrand

The Grands Projets of François Mitterrand (variants: Grands Travaux or Grands Projets Culturels; officially: Grandes Opérations d'Architecture et d'Urbanisme) was an architectural programme to provide modern monuments in Paris, the city of monuments, symbolising France's role in art, politics and the economy at the end of the 20th century.^[1][2] The programme was initiated by François Mitterrand, the 21st President of France, while he was in office. Mitterrand viewed the civic building projects, estimated at the time to cost the Government of France 15.7 billion francs,^[3] both as a revitalisation of the city, as well as contemporary architecture promoted by Socialist Party politics. The scale of the project and its ambitious nature was compared to the major building schemes of Louis XIV.^[4]

This grandiose plan, commencing in 1982,

Built between 1981 and 1998, the Grands Projets were constructed of similar materials, in less than two decades, within an urban landscape, and displaying related ideologies.^[8] Several of the monuments would display transparency, reflection, and abstract form.^[9] Considered to be visible, durable and controversial elements of Mitterrand's years in office, the Grands Travaux (or Grands Projets Culturels) were officially known as the Grandes Operations d'Architecture et d'Urbanisme.^[10] François Mitterrand's Socialist government of the 1980s was strongly focused on promoting culture, and it was one of the centerpieces of his presidency.^[11] Mitterrand's government allocated more money into art than had ever been seen in the past or since.^[11] They were commissioned to celebrate the 200th anniversary of the French Revolution.^[12]

Mitterrand drew his inspiration for the Grands Projets from President

Mitterrand's Grands Projets were realized throughout his presidency:[16]

• 21 May 1981: François Mitterrand is elected president
• 24 September 1981: Press conference presenting the scope of the Grands Projets
• 25 January 1985: Inauguration of the Grande Halle of the Parc de la Villette
• 1 December 1986: Inauguration of the musée d'Orsay
• 30 November 1987: Inauguration of the Arab World Institute
• 4 March 1988: Inauguration of the Louvre Pyramid
• 13 July 1989: Inauguration of Opéra Bastille
• 26 August 1989: Inauguration of the Grande Arche de La Défense
• 30 March 1995: Inauguration of the Bibliothèque nationale de France
• 6 May 1994: Inauguration of the Channel Tunnel

Influenced

Musée d'Orsay

In 1977, the government made the decision to renovate the Gare d'Orsay (Orsay train station) into the Musée d'Orsay. The Italian architect Gae Aulenti oversaw the design of the conversion from 1980 to 1986.^[17] The work involved creating 20,000 square metres (220,000 sq ft) of new floorspace on four floors. The new museum was opened by Mitterrand on 1 December 1986,^[18] and even though it began before he took office, the work is attributed as one of his Grands Projets.

Parc de la Villette

Parc de la Villette, located in northeastern Paris, now includes a science museum and an exhibition hall.^[5] A project titled "Parc de la Villette" was launched in 1979 to create a national park with a music centre and a museum devoted to science and technology. The project is spread over an area of 55 acres (22 ha). In an international competition held in 1982 in which 460 teams from 41 countries participated, Bernard Tschumi, a French architect of Swiss origin, was chosen as the architect to build the complex, in March 1983.^[19] The objective was to make Parc de la Villette an artistic, cultural and popular centre in Paris. Tschumi designed the park from 1984 to 1987 on the site of the former Parisian abattoirs,^[20] which had been built in 1867 by Napoleon III and demolished and relocated in 1974. The park project was successfully completed in stages with the gardens of the Park and the Maison de la Villette getting established in October 1987, the Music and Dance centres in 1990, Music and Concert Halls inaugurated in January 1995 and Music Museum inaugurated in January 2000.^[19] It now hosts the annual Open-Air Film Festival.

Grande Arche de La Défense

A great national

humanitarian ideals rather than military victories. The construction of the monument began in 1985 and Mitterrand personally saw that the largest crane in Europe was brought in to build it.^[21] Spreckelsen resigned on July 1986 and ratified the transfer of all his architectural responsibilities to his associate, French architect Paul Andreu. Reitzel continued his work until the monument was completed in 1989. The Arche is almost a perfect cube ^[22] (width: 108 metres (354 ft), height: 110 metres (360 ft), depth: 112 metres (367 ft)); it has been suggested that the structure looks like a four-dimensional hypercube (a tesseract) projected onto the three-dimensional world. It has a prestressed concrete frame covered with glass and Carrara marble from Italy and was built by the French civil engineering company Bouygues. La Grande Arche was inaugurated on 14 July 1989,^[22] with grand military parades that marked the bicentennial of the French Revolution and completed the line of monuments that forms the Axe historique running through Paris.^[23]

Commissioned

Louvre Pyramid

Monumental in scope and public in purpose, the best-known of the Grands Projets is the

Musée du Louvre, adding an entrance within the Louvre Pyramid, commissioned by Mitterrand in 1984. Mitterrand insisted on personally inspecting the materials that were used during the construction of the Louvre pyramid, from its glass panels to its steel girders, something which struck the architect as unusual at his degree of interest.^[24]

Arab World Institute

The

Paris Mosque, other institutions, buildings and places that mark milestones in the exchanges between the Arab world and France, is described as "modern architectural symbol of dialogue between Western culture and the Arab world."^[28]

Opéra Bastille

Construction began on the

FF to build.^[30][31] The railway station and the bridge that existed here have become part of the "Promenade Plantée", an elevated parkway that extends over many kilometres to the city limits on the east.^[31]

Ministry of the Economy and Finance building

The Ministry of the Economy and Finance building is located at 1 Boulevard de Bercy. It extends down to the Seine and was the result of a 1982 competition.^[5] A national competition was held with entrants providing building designs for 225,000 square metres (2,420,000 sq ft) of office space which would constitute a "grand gesture". Height restrictions of the time precluded the construction of a tower on the narrow site that was T-shaped and split in two by the Rue de Bercy^[32] Paul Chemetov and Borja Huidobro^[33] were the winning designers.^[34] The Ministry of Finance and Economy was located in the Richelieu Wing of the Louvre and had to be relocated with the repurpose of the Louvre.^[35]

Built in 1988, Building A and Building B bridge over the Rue de Bercy. At 70 metres (230 ft) in length, six levels each span over Quai de la Rapee.^[36] The building is nicknamed the "steamboat" because of its extreme length.^[34] A viaduct became a principal building facade with a moat separating the buildings from the boulevard. The Ministère des Finances building received mixed reviews, including a comparison to Fascist and Stalinist architecture, or a motorway tollgate.^[32]

Bibliothèque nationale de France

Opened in 1996, the Bibliothèque nationale de France was the last and most costly of the Grands Projets built in Paris.^[4][37] It consists of four 25-story L-shaped towers representing open books, "arranged at the corners of a giant platform around a sunken garden".^[38] After the move of the major collections from the Rue de Richelieu, the National Library of France was inaugurated on 15 December 1996 and today contains more than ten million volumes.^[39][40] Construction of the library ran into huge cost overruns and technical difficulties related to its high-rise design, so much so that it was then referred to as the "TGB" or "Très Grande Bibliothèque"^[4] (i.e. "Very Large Library," a sarcastic allusion to France's successful high-speed rail system, the TGV).^[41]

Tjibaou Cultural Centre

The Jean-Marie Tjibaou Cultural Centre, in Nouméa, New Caledonia, Melanesia is the only one of the Grands Projets built outside of Metropolitan France. It was built on the site of the Festival Melanesia 2000, which had occurred 25 years earlier.^[42] It was designed by the Italian architect, Renzo Piano.^[43]

Centre International de Conferences

The Centre International de Conferences was to be the last of the Grands Projets. Designed by Francis Soler, 1990 winner of the

Musée du quai Branly commissioned by president Jacques Chirac

was built instead on the site.

Reaction and criticism

While an initial negative reaction to the Grands Projets viewed it as a continuation of the traditional east/west shift in Paris power, a shift in viewpoint occurred after some time. This resulted after many of the projects were constructed on the working-class eastern side of Paris, and the projects brought a re-emphasis to the Seine.[45]

Considered expensive and controversial,^[13] Frommer's said "The majority were considered controversial or even offensive when completed".^[46] Mitterrand's projects have been criticised as being empire-building, as well as compromising the "fabric" of Paris.^[8] Public taxes had to be raised to finance the project, amounting to a massive €4.6 billion derived from taxes.^[47][48] The library was strongly criticised by the French press and has suffered since from "operational problems" and maintenance issues.^[44]: 275

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