Architecture in France Under François Mitterrand

For François Mitterrand, ‘le premier des arts' was architecture; indeed, his personal fascination for this subject is clearly discernible in his writing. This private ‘passion' was to have a very striking influence on his presidency, most obviously in the form of what were known as the Grands Travaux or Grands Projets Culturels, a programme of architectural projects in Paris which constitute one of the most visible and durable aspects of his legacy. Mitterrand's Grands Travaux consisted of a programme of about a dozen major architectural projects in Paris, three of which had in fact been initiated under Giscard d'Estaing: the Institute of the Arab World, the Science Museum at La Villette and the Musée d'Orsay.

The first of these, inaugurated in 1987, is a cultural centre whose stated objective was to foster the understanding in France of the culture of the Arab world, defined in its broadest sense, since more than twenty Arab countries participated in this joint venture, in partnership with the French state. The Musée d'Orsay, also inaugurated in 1987, is a museum of art from the mid-nineteenth to early twentieth centuries, created by converting the old Orsay station which had been abandoned after the war. The third project instigated by Giscard and then completed under Mitterrand is the Cité des Sciences at La Villette, inaugurated in 1986, just days before the legislative elections that led to the first period of political ‘cohabitation' in France. This was also an architectural conversion, involving in this case the central building of the new abattoir commissioned under de Gaulle but then not completed due to changing market conditions. It is surrounded by a new ‘urban' park, designed by the Franco- Swiss architect, Bernard Tschumi; commissioned under Mitterrand, it is classified separately as another of his Grands Travaux, though the President is said to have had very little involvement in its conception or execution, and indeed, is rumoured to have disliked it intensely.

A third project on the same site is the Cité de la Musique, designed by French architect Christian de Portzamparc, in two separate units, one housing the new Conservatoire and rehearsal studios, and the other containing a museum of music, a concert hall and amphitheatre, a multimedia library and exhibition area. This was not inaugurated until January 1995, having been given the lowest priority of all the projects, paradoxically, because of the crossparty support for it. The music complex at La Villette was originally also to have incorporated another project, for a new ‘popular' opera house, but in fact a more central site on the Place de la Bastille was then chosen, essentially for symbolic reasons. The Opéra-Bastille, designed by the Canadian-Uruguayan architect Carlos Ott, was inaugurated for the Bicentenary celebrations in 1989, but did not open to the public until the following year. There was intense opposition to this project on aesthetic, financial and technical grounds, and Mitterrand, who did not like the design, nearly abandoned it on several occasions.

It has remained the subject of much controversy surrounding its cost, its technical qualities and its programming policy, and it is undoubtedly one of the least well received of the Grands Travaux. Conversely, the project which is now considered as being the most successful is the one with which Mitterrand was most closely involved personally: the Grand Louvre. Mitterrand confessed to having long been ‘obsessed' with the idea of modernizing the Louvre, where the lack of space and funds prevented the proper functioning of the museum; he was determined to force the departure of the Ministry of Finance from the Richelieu wing of the building, in what he saw as a symbolic battle between money and culture. His appointment, without competition, of the Chinese-American architect Ieoh Ming Pei to take on the project, was much attacked for its allegedly personalized and ‘arbitrary' nature, though public criticism was in fact fuelled less by this apparent autocracy than by Pei's ‘revolutionary' design for a glass pyramid in the Cour Napoléon to mark the new central entrance.

The ‘battle of the pyramid', which was launched by France-Soir in January 1984, did not die down until over a year later when a lifesize model, erected on the proposed site, persuaded opponents that it would not be the ‘aberration' that many had predicted. Indeed, the pyramid has since become probably the most admired architectural project of the Mitterrand presidency, and has attracted record numbers of visitors. An offshoot of the Grand Louvre was the construction of another new building to house the displaced Ministry of Finance. In order to minimize potential technical problems that might indirectly cause delays to the Grand Louvre project, thereby jeopardizing its completion, Mitterrand allowed Jacques Chirac as mayor of Paris to exert a major influence over the choice of site at Bercy, which suited his plan to redevelop the eastern half of the city according to his ‘Plan de l'est parisien'.

Given the intended function of the building, the architectural competition was open to French architects only, and it was won by Paul Chemetov and Borja Huidobro, whose design was much criticized for what was often described as its neo-Stalinist style, which Mitterrand himself described as being that of a motorway toll. The Ministry finally moved into its new location in 1989, after a bitter struggle involving Chirac's Finance Minister from 1986-1988, Édouard Balladur, who was reluctant to move; this enabled the Richelieu wing of the Louvre to be inaugurated by 1993, year of the bicentenary of the Convention's decision to turn the royal palace into a national museum. The other architectural project in which Mitterrand took a particular personal interest was the Arche de La Défense; all the previous presidents of the Fifth Republic had discussed plans to build a major monument on this site, but it was Mitterrand who made this a reality. An international competition was won by Danish architect Johan Otto von Spreckelsen whose design for a huge white marble arch (or cube as it was first called) met with almost unanimous acclaim from specialists and nonspecialists alike.

Built on top of four main pillars sunk underground, it had to be slightly turned at an angle from the ‘triumphal route' leading down to the Arc de Triomphe and the Champs Élysées, because of existing underground service networks. It was initially designed to house a vast communications centre, abandoned by the Chirac government in 1986, when private investment had to be sought to ensure the future of the building, which is now essentially occupied as office space. It was inaugurated during the Bicentenary celebrations in 1989, and the roof of the arch was used for the G7 meeting that took place on this occasion. Since then, the roof has housed the Fondation des Droits de l'Homme, officially inaugurated on 26 August, anniversary of the Declaration of the Rights of Man. Mitterrand's re-election to the presidency in 1988 gave him the confidence to launch another major architectural project, this time for a vast new modern library. A limited competition was held, which was won by French architect Dominique Perrault, whose design consisted of four L-shaped glass towers facing inwards towards each other, symbolizing open books, round a sunken garden. The site was once again chosen partly out of deference to Chirac, since the Ville de Paris offered to give the site free of charge, because it wanted to use the new library as the central focus of a whole new redevelopment in this area, known as the Seine Rive-Gauche.

The Bibliothèque Nationale de France was officially inaugurated by Mitterrand in 1994, but not opened to the public (and then only partially) until December 1996, at which point Chirac decided to extend the library's full name by adding that of François Mitterrand. Two other less important projects were also planned for the second presidency: the renovation of the Galerie de l'Évolution in the Museum d'Histoire Naturelle, which was completed in 1994, and the International Conference Centre to be built on a site on the Quai Branly, near the Eiffel Tower. This project was the only one to fall foul of conflicts with the Ville de Paris, and had to be abandoned in 1993. Besides these major projects in Paris, many others were also carried out in the provinces, but they were not really part of the presidential programme; they were partly funded by the Ministry of Culture in partnership with local authorities which, usually under the auspices of ambitious mayors, emulated the central model of cultural gestures, by initiating the construction of major cultural projects that would not only satisfy the increasing demand from the electorate for cultural facilities in their areas, but also act as vehicles for urban development. These projects outside Paris were instigated by the state largely to offset criticisms by decentralizers of excessive resources being concentrated into the capital, and they enabled the defenders of the Grands Travaux to argue that the central ‘example' was the most effective model for irrigating the country with cultural initiatives.

The significance of the Grands Travaux has been extensively discussed in the press and, to a lesser degree, in academic research. The widely accepted presentation is that of Mitterrand as the president-pharaon (pharaoh-president), building monuments to his own glory, in a revival of the old French monarchical tradition of building in the capital, in order to establish and enhance the personal image of the head of state. That the president chose to leave his most personal and controversial mark on the Louvre, the symbolic heart of French national culture, simply reinforced this view of Mitterrand as a ‘megalomaniac' with an overriding ambition to be remembered in history through the construction of these prestigious monuments.

Moreover, the fact that he was able to carry out such a massive programme of architectural projects, on a scale unprecedented since the days of Haussmann, was made possible, according to this interpretation, by the almost unlimited powers supposedly available to the president of the Fifth Republic, who is frequently portrayed as ‘an elected monarch', able to dictate policy without having to contend with any significant constraints. However, this construal of the Grands Travaux makes assumptions about the president's motives and the extent of his powers, both of which can be contested. First, with regard to his ambitions, the quest for personal glory is in no way an accurate reflection of the mood that initially inspired them: Mitterrand's greatest concern in initiating the Grands Travaux was to leave a cultural stamp on his presidency, and the architectural projects were intended as prestigious ‘cultural gestures', designed to drive a much broader cultural policy, pursued in parallel under the authority of Jack Lang as Minister of Culture. Indeed, all the architectural projects (except for the new Ministry of Finance, which was simply an offshoot of the Grand Louvre) had a cultural function of some sort, which was in each case conceived as a response to a widely perceived and often long-standing demand from the public and from professionals in the field.

It was also Mitterrand's ambition to use these cultural projects to bring about an architectural revival in the capital, enabling new talents to come forward and express themselves in a burst of artistic creativity. Indeed, Mitterrand had often deplored the quality of publicly funded architecture in France, and he hoped that the Grands Travaux would play an exemplary role in setting new architectural standards and expectations. This would also have the effect of focusing international architectural attention on Paris, thereby restoring the city's supposedly declining status as a cultural Mecca. But there was a further dimension to the architectural revival about which Mitterrand spoke often before his election, and this was the role it would play in humanizing ‘the city' and making it more ‘civilized', a notion which he claimed was central to his idea of socialism. His architectural projects would therefore also, in theory at least, be informed by a wider concern with urban design and planning that was, and continues to be, a major preoccupation of architects and planners alike with regard to the city of Paris and its future development. However, this ‘urban' dimension was in the event very considerably eclipsed by the cultural demands, and the president was much criticized for emphasizing the monumental and neglecting the concerns of the suburbs, for example with regard to the choice of sites.

It is also true that there was undoubtedly, over the years, a certain shift in his ambitions with regard to the Grands Travaux: the library project was conceived and executed in a context of supreme political self-confidence at the beginning of his second period of office, which for many marked the beginning of a decline into the excesses and abuses of power that branded him a nepotist, a liar and a despot. Second, the extent to which the very complex decision-making processes involving the Grands Travaux were associated personally with the president himself has been greatly exaggerated. Similarly, the often crucial role and influence of political advisers, technicians and other professionals has been almost totally ignored in the attempt to portray Mitterrand as having behaved in the manner of an absolute monarch. Recent research, however, has shown that the president would not have been able to undertake or complete the Grands Travaux had he not been actively supported and advised in this venture by certain informally constituted groups, who were not simply behaving as courtiers, but who saw in Mitterrand's programme the opportunity to realize their own independently elaborated projects.

For the ‘cultural community', as represented, essentially, in the person of Jack Lang, this meant providing the capital with better cultural facilities. For local planners (mainly those working from the local authority agency, the Atelier Parisien d'Urbanisme or APUR), it meant a chance to redevelop certain parts of the city according to their own existing plans that would otherwise have remained on the drawing board. For many involved in local cultural politics, behind the rhetoric of political opposition, the presidential projects represented a unique opportunity to provide the local electorate with facilities that would be paid for by the state rather than out of local taxes. Indeed, it could even be argued that the case of the Grands Travaux, rather than representing the presidential expression of pure sovereign power, showed, on the contrary, how these groups were able to use the president's own ambitions to pursue their own agendas. More accurately, given the heterogeneous nature of the different projects in the programme, the Grands Travaux should be seen as an example of an osmosis between the presidential ambitions and their harnessing by the actors in the relevant policy area to suit their own specific demands.

Thus, the widely accepted view of the Grands Travaux as the expression of Mitterrand's monarchical ambitions and powers can be reassessed as a gross misrepresentation, and yet it is a view which will almost certainly continue to hold sway, not only due to the limited dissemination of academic research, but also because of the ease with which this view lends itself to caricatural representation in the media, and the appeal of this sort of image to the public in general. Besides, it is a view which has clearly served the political interests of Mitterrand's critics both on the Right and the Left, and it is for this reason that the Grands Travaux will continue to be a controversial aspect of his legacy.