Contenu du sommaire : Mutations et reconversions des espaces de production (XVIIIe-XXIe siècle)

During the 18th century, areas of specialized production in Southern France had a chequered history. The success experienced by some was due, in part, to the capacity of their companies to integrate their business in contemporary society by reducing tension through the development of a certain level of relations between those involved in production. Others reduced their industrial sector because they did not know how to resolve the constraints created by strong social polarization which made it difficult to establish a minimum of cooperation between territorial actors.

Since the Ancient Regime and until its recent deindustrialization, the city of Naples was a territory deeply marked by its manufacturing activities. This article seeks to explore this history and the remaining traces, in order to address the problem of reutilization of industrial brownfields. It seeks to determine how this part of the Neapolitan urban identity has been valorized, abandoned or instrumentalized in response to political, economic and social questions and to players as they react to the evolution in strategies and approaches. Finally, the history of the construction and conversion of Naples' industrial areas will help us understand, for the long term, the basic elements and a number of transformations in social relationships and town planning policies in Europe and the Mediterranean under the Ancient Regime and in contemporary society.

Catalan industrial colonies are still, in the early 21st century, a subject of passion and controversy. A historical approach, based on the study of company archives, has uncovered a few rare cases, which explains why these colonies are the subject of passionate and commemorative interpretation. It is important that we take a more dispassionate approach that takes into account technical, social and spatial arguments, the approach suggested in this contribution. This heritage is all the more important because of the number of sites involved, the quality of their architecture, and the various forms inspired by the original model. But, despite the wealth of examples, it is not possible to make an overall study or project. A variety of initiatives are required, some successful, others less so, even though the heritage may suffer as a result.

In the first decades of the 19th century, the Forest of La Double was no more than a shadow of its former self, a vast marshy copse, that was unhealthy and a haven for malarial fever, in which a poor community struggled to survive. Little by little, the local gentry became concerned about this situation. Drawing on previous experiments in the Dombes, the Sologne and the Landes, they contacted their networks and used their political influence to make changes. Over fifty years, private, public and political actors, together with farmers and religious congregations, worked to open up the forest and improve the health of the population in the county, as this was considered the only way to ensure its growth and to modernize agricultural production. The process was long, beginning during the July monarchy and ending under the Third Republic, due to the many interests involved : competition between those benefitting from the changes and those who lost out, dismantlement of properties, financial difficulties faced by municipal councils. The objective in this article is to identify the players, stakes and phases of the development of la Double, identify the sources of resistance, and compare the results with the initial goals.

An ancient offshore bar of the Rhone Delta between Aigues-Mortes on the west and the Little Rhone on the east bears the traces of several successive adjustments since the end of the nineteenth century. The initial agricultural conquest of the area came during the phylloxera crisis in the Bas-Languedoc when large vineyards were established in the sandy soil to protect the vines against the ravages of the insect. Essentially one big property, the chateau and hamlet of Montcalm (Vauvert) was controlled by the Noilly-Prat family from Marseille. A century later at the height of the grape overproduction crisis, regional and national wine trading houses vertically and horizontally integrated the vineyards. At the same time, tourist development on the neighboring coast (Grande-Motte, Port-Camargue) pushed land use in vines toward the interior part of the bar where properties took advantage of an appellation to produce “sand wines” and also sought to benefit from the new tourism based on the terroir idea.

Over the last 20 years, the Friche de la Belle-de-Mai in Marseilles has been much in the news. Created in 1990, thanks to a handful of cultural operators and a commitment from local politicians, “La Friche”, as it is known locally, is now, in 2010, the most important cultural institution in the southern city of Marseilles. Thanks to its international reputation, it has played an important role in Marseilles' successful candidacy for the label “European Capital of Culture in 2013”. And yet, the transformation of a productive industrial site (the former SEITA tobacco factory) into a cultural and artistic site was not a simple affair. In addition to physical and architectural constraints on the site, La Friche is located in a poor neighbourhood in a rundown urban district. Twenty years after its creation, when it is on the point of being transformed into a Community Cooperative Society (SCIC), the Friche Belle-de-Mai seems to have arrived at a crossroads.