Le Havre

Come on Kids, lets explore …. Prefabricated concrete structural classicism!!

Le Havre for a rainy weekend in February probably doesn’t scream “Family Holiday” but this was perhaps our most successful attempt to combine World Heritage Sites with something a 4 year old will enjoy.

There were multiple reasons why this was enjoyable, but at the heart of all of them was how successful this rebuilding project was in creating a livable city. There is a bit of an academic pursuit in pointing out how every block of concrete pillars along ave. de Paris has a different shape or capital, but amazingly this is something that a six year old can latch onto and point out. I doubt Auguste Perret set out to create a city sized “spot the difference” puzzle but that is what we got from it. 

And from what I understand that is sort of the point of what M. Perret set out to do. Creating units that could be easily reproduced and created from standard units, but also which aren’t monotonous. It draws from the ideas of Haussman in Paris that different heights and levels can break up buildings and make them feel more human. I’m sure my kids weren’t reacting to that on an intellectual level, but they didn’t find the km’s of reinforced concrete porticos in any way off putting, and seeing them running around exploring suggested this urban experiment worked well.

However the highlight for my daughters wasn’t Perret’s grid, …

After WW2 France was faced with a severe housing shortage. During the wars construction had been on a low level. After WW2 a baby boom set in and people left their villages for the big cities, specifically Paris. Last but not least, the end of colonialism meant a huge influx of French citizens from the colonies back to France, most notably Algeria.

To deal with this the French constructed huge banlieus (suburbs) on the outskirts of town. These were build in a modernist style all over France. The citizens were mostly poor; new arrivals from the former colonies or poor French from the country side. The buildings are referred to as HLM (Habituation à Logement Moderé). While HLM literally only means rent controlled, in France it normally infers the image of a large concrete apartment block in a rough neighborhood.

Le Havre is similar to these HLMs and banlieus. The city was destroyed during WW2 and then rebuilt from scratch in modernist style afterwards. The leading architect was Auguste Perret, but you also find a building (the Volcano) from Oscar Niemeyer.

As is often the case, modernist architecture done right works: Le Havre is a pleasant visit. It makes you wonder what went wrong in the other banlieus of France. Personally, I think it's a mix of spending too little money on the architecture when creating the copies. And the population. Le Havre was a complete city for poor and rich inhabitants. The HLMs and banlieus meanwhile …

August 2018 - one of our main goals on that trip. The city is not beautiful i was heavily bombed in WW2, but the reconstruction, or rather complete new set up by August Perret, is a perfect model city. All the concrete buildings, which are made from the old ruins, align like model houses on a toy train. You feel like making a journey back to the 50s. The houses and parks look, like they just were planted or pulled up,

The harbour city has a very special mediteranean flair. We were at the city beach for about 1 hour up. We visited some of the buildings. Although I am not a big fan of modern churches, this chuch is just stunning. The colors of the small glass windows are perfectly aligned and create a special atmosphere. It was designed by a women as we learned. Too bad for the old Le Havre getting lost, but the new one is very special too.

I visited Le Havre as a day trip from Paris on a hot summer day during the EURO 2016, as a distraction after watching a poor performance by the Austrian team. It is a very pleasant city with many parks and a beach, and the WH part can be explored in a short walk. During WW II, Le Havre was an important port for the Germans, and thus regularly bombed by the Allies. After the war, it was rebuilt according to a master plan by Auguste Perret, also known as the mentor and teacher of Le Corbusier. The only buildings designed by Perret himself are the town hall (impressive from the outside, but I did not enter it) and the Church of St. Joseph with its large tower, known as the symbol of Le Havre. It is actually quiet nice inside, although the outside looks like it was designed by the same architect as the Palace of Culture in Warsaw. The 15th-century cathedral also makes for an interesting visit, as it is one of the very few buildings to have survived the air raids. I also did an interesting harbour cruise and so spent an enjoyable day in this city, even though I still have some doubts about the WH value.

You would think that a city made of concrete might be quite brutalistic or ugly - but Le Havre is absolutely stunning. There is something about the way the architects have taken the plain blocks and give them texture and colour that is quite unique and plays with your senses in a delightful way.

The highlight of the visit is the cathedral and you must go inside to see the colourful displays you get when the sun shines through the windows. Many of the other public buildings and apartment blocks you can just enjoy from the outside while walking around.

It is possible to go inside an apartment that has been maintained in the same style as it would have been when Le Havre was first developed like this after the war. Unfortunately I wasn't able to do this myself because of a mix up with my booking but I hear that it is well worth it!

"Perret, la poétique du béton" (Perret, the poetics of concrete) was written on a poster at the Maison du Patrimoine in Le Havre. Well, that's certainly exaggerated and I can understand the visitors who find the city dull and uninteresting. But I liked to stroll through the streets and explore the city: the wide boulevards, the spacious squares, the straight lines and plain forms. The buildings appear monotonous at first glance, but at a closer look you can see the subtle details, the ornaments and the different shades of colour.

Le Havre was almost completely destroyed in WWII and Auguste Perret was commissioned to rebuild the city. Perret was known for his preference for concrete and he used the material for all buildings. It was novel and radical - and controversial - to rebuild a historic city according to a uniform plan entirely from concrete. The result was unusual for that time but definitely an improvement in the living conditions. Even today, the city appears light, airy and spacious.

The city seems to be very proud of its World Heritage status, they were celebrating the 10th anniversary with an extensive program, many culural events and special guided tours. The Town Hall was decorated with banners with the UNESCO logo and looked exactly like on Ian's photo below from 2005, obviously they have kept the banners.

The buildings opposite the Town Hall were the first project designed by Perret's studio. You can visit a reconstructed show flat in one of these …

I visited Le Havre as a break on my 6.5-hour drive from Bayeux back home. My expectations for the city weren't high so I allowed only an hour or two, but it wasn't bad at all. I could drive up all the way to the Hotel de Ville, and parked in the street 50m from there. These streets were the first pleasant surprise: very wide, aligned with trees, with a tramway in the middle, and lots of parking spaces on either side. The pavement has separate tracks for pedestrians and cyclists. They were used by locals out for some Sunday morning exercise.

To see the city center I walked the main boulevards which are aligned as a triangle: Rue de Paris, Boulevard Francois 1er and Avenue Foch. The Rue de Paris starts in front of the Hotel de Ville, which is one of the main sights of the city. The street itself is a shopping street but has the characteristic beige low rise buildings that I would see throughout. On the right, you will pass the white cultural center that Niemeyer gave the city, on the left side lies the city's cathedral, one of the few surviving old buildings. The street ends at the seafront, where two tall towers designed by Lambert symbolize a gateway into the city. The area was/is used as a social housing project. I liked the architecture of it.

From there, the Boulevard Francois 1er starts and you walk towards the city's beacon: the …

I visited this WHS in Summer 2011. The strange looking cathedral was the highlight of my visit but the modernist style of Auguste Perret could also be admired in the city centre. The name Le Havre, as used in modern times, simply translates as "the port" or "the harbour" and although a lot has been done to overcome the urban gloom and greyness of a city rebuilt after World War II, still there is nothing that would make me want to stay overnight. Practically one day here is enough to see it all.

I've seen several examples of post-WWII rebuilds, most of them in Germany, like Kassel, Hannover, and Wupperthal. Cologne tops the list because of its size. These places all have something in common; they possess a chilling ambiance that mercilessly reminds one of the human will to annihilate.

When I learned last summer that LeHavre had been selected for the World Heritage List, I was incredulous. This is because I cannot forget the day in July 1991 that I arrived there by train from Paris. I had a five-hour wait for the ferry to Portsmouth. Sad, grey, severe, and angular, and the materials looked shoddy. Now, I wasn't expecting a tourist venue oozing quaintness. But I wasn't prepared for this. The whole town seemed to weep.

France, 1947. Devastated in two World Wars, politically adrift,losing its colonies,and broke. An elderly and respected architect is granted one of his last commissions, and the result, as least for me on that summer day, was an impression of crime, bewilderment, and profound grief. I'd seen the memorials at Verdun, but they offered little in the competition for Saddest Place in Europe. One recalls Patrick McGoohan as The Prisoner in his sinister village, or maybe a Jacques Tati remake done by George Romero, or a minimalist Rodenbach updating Bruges la morte.

Maybe it's changed, but from the photos I've seen, I don't think so. Now that UNESCO has sanctified it, so to speak, I dream about visiting it again, out of respect for the folks …

The first thing you can see when approaching from the sea is the tall tower of St Joesph church, this was one of the key projects that Perret designed himself, it is imposing if slightly phallic, but the inside is very impressive the tower has multi coloured glass and it gives the whole place an peculiar glow, making it very tranquil. The rest of the city is laid out on a grid and is all made of reinforced concrete, but there are subtle differences in the buildings. There are several plaza and gardens around the centre one of which contains the impressive cultural centre designed by Oscar Neiymeyer (architect of Brasilia).

I visited just two weeks after Le Havre was added to the list and there were banners coving the Town hall and flags flying all around the main square which was very nice to see. You can climb the Tower of the Town Hall to get a good over view of the city's lay out.

On the whole the site was nice but I didn't really feel that I was viewing something exceptional.

As I live in Portsmouth, in southern England I have regularly visited many of the northern French ports that are linked by ferry. I had been through Le Havre several times before (even sleeping in the ferry port at the end of a trip across Europe) but I couldn't bring myself to count it as a visited site, as I only really passed through. So I …