The Maison du Peuple of Clichy (1935-1939), Eugène Beaudoin and Marcel Lods architects (with the participation of André Sive from 1937) assisted by the engineer Vladimir Bodiansky and the builder Jean Prouvé, combines a market on the ground floor and an auditorium on the first floor. The spectacular machine of Clichy (1), one of the monuments of modern architecture of the 1930s, expresses and announces the versatility, flexibility and mobility of architecture after the Second World War. It is included in all the history books of architecture and is considered to be a first-class work of the 20th century.
As part of the call for projects “inventons la métropole du grand Paris”, a team consisting of the Duval real estate group, the architects Rudy Ricciotti, Lba + Holzweg is declared winner of the consultation and plan the construction of a tower 96 m high planted in the rear part of the monument listed as a Historic Monument since December 30, 1983. Will the presence in the team of a Chief Architect of Historical Monuments and the strange guaranty of the Pompidou Center be enough to authorize the massacre that is coming tomorrow?”
By Richard Klein, chair of Docomomo France
(1) Jean-Louis Cohen, Maisons du Peuple, architecture pour le peuple, Bruxelles, AAM, 1984, p.179
The current Minister of Culture, Franck Riester, announced, September 2019, that the project of the Duval Group will not be validated by the State in its current proposal. Adding that for the project to be accepted it must still be altered. Check the article here.
Last year, 12th March 2018, Jack Lang, the French Minister of Culture that was in power at the time of the classification of the Maison du Peuple as National Historical Monument, wrote a letter to the current French Minister of Culture, Françoise Nyssen, in defense of the preservation of Maison du Peuple of Clichy, stating “I urge you to find a solution so that this unique testimony of an art and an era is carefully preserved”.
Watch video: website
More details: website [french]
Article written by Andrew Ayers in Architectural Record: website
Find on Pdf below:
Press release from the Association Quartier Maison du Peuple [French] (13th September);
Docomomo Uk Support Letter (6th March);
Jack Lang letter to the Culture Minister Françoise Nyssen [french] (12th March);
Kenneth Frampton Support Letter (18th April);
Docomomo Switzerland Support Letter (23rd April);
Docomomo France open letter written by Richard Klein, Chair of Docomomo France [french] and the collected support signatures (18th April, last updated 6th September);
Docomomo fiches about Maison du Peuple original project and a detailed paper concerning Maison du Peuple future plans;
Culture Minister Françoise Nyssen letter to Chair of Docomomo France Richard Klein [french] (4th July);
ICOMOS Support Letter (30th July).
Maison du Peuple of Clichy was featured at the 16th International Architecture Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia and at the French daily afternoon newspaper Le Monde, 25th June 2018.
Additionally, this September the Association Quartier Maison du Peuple (Clichy-la-Garenne) has made an appeal against the project of modification of the Urban plan (PLU) regarding the construction of the new tower.
The resulting press release can also be found it in the pdf below.
