Territoire en Mouvement (Jul 2022)
Réactiver la mémoire du lieu, une étape fondamentale pour faire projet. Cités d’habitations à bon marché de la Capuche, l’Abbaye et Jean Macé à Grenoble
Abstract
This article defends the idea that what makes heritage 'remains the best instrument we have to invent our future' (Neyret, 2004, referring to F. Choay, 1992: p. 237). We postulate that the memory of the place would be the concrete articulation between elements of heritage and elements of project to think the urban renewal of the neighborhoods of la Capuche, l'Abbaye and Jean Macé in Grenoble. The conception of heritage that we propose, allows to give recognition to plural elements that evolve, integrate mutations, renewals and disappearances. We are interested in both the constructed elements, the life stories and daily experiences of the inhabitants of these places. Through a methodological approach that mobilises the constructed, social and sensitive dimensions, we grasp both elements of heritage as keys to read the memory of the place, and elements that are still latent and that make project once they are reactivated. With the mix of several investigative tools, we reveal what makes heritage in la Capuche, l’Abbaye and Jean Macé, not as a materiality to be fixed and preserved in order to keep a past memory, but rather as opportunities to be seized in order to think about their place in our contemporary cities. In order to understand this articulation, we are inspired by the figurative typology (Chalas, 2000) which allows us to apprehend a place in its historical thickness and through its meaning. It is a way of translating elements of heritage into elements of project to be proposed to those who make the city and its renewal. In this way, any urban project would begin by the reactivation of the memory of place as a common good to be transmitted in order to give to these places the possibilities of reinventing themselves with their own resources and by preserving 'as much as possible a present existence' (Chauvier, 2015 : p. 50).
