Contenu du sommaire : Henri Sellier — La cause des villes

From Socialism to Solidarity in Greater Paris : Henri Sellier and the Passion for Cities A strong advocate for urban reform from 1910 until his death in 1943, Henri Sellier was involved in several projects for public health and administrative streamlining in Greater Paris. Praised by his political opponents, recognised by officials of the Prefecture, Sellier was a socialist who appeared as an iconoclast in his own political family. A pragmatist, builder and careful negotiator, he used the resources of institutions and social networks that he founded and cultivated. The chief of several groups of elected officials, this advocate of cooperation on local public policy based his original influence on his involvement in municipal socialism. His exemplary, efficient achievements materialised his vision (albeit incomplete) of a Paris metropolitan region driven by solidarity. They reflect his political thought, nourished by a passion for the city. They also reveal his sense of compromise, tested in the conduct of public business for Greater Paris.

A “Lucid Achiever”. Henri Sellier and the Reform of Job Placement in Paris : Conceiving and Organising the Labour Market on a Regional Level Before the First World War, Henri Sellier participated in reformist networks designing plans to reorganise the Paris job placement system. Thus, Sellier's name and his commitment left their imprint on the creation, in 1915, of a public job placement service, coordinated at the level of the Seine Department. In Sellier's view, the need for this Job Placement and Labour Statistics Office was intrinsically related to an innovative reflection on the sprawl of industrial areas. Only an entity on the departmental level would be able to rationally organise a labour market that had expanded to the regional level, understood as a single socioeconomic unit. Thus, Sellier helped Paris and the surrounding region go beyond a municipality-based view of job placement based on offices in municipalities or arrondissements.

Henri Sellier and Lessons from Abroad : The Garden City, One of Several Models for Urban Planning ? The crucial role played by Henri Sellier in spreading and applying the garden city model in France should not overshadow his involvement, before the First World War, in promoting other foreign examples of urban planning that had other supporters. The emphasis placed on German rationality and foresightedness, visible in expansion plans, and the efficiency of administrative organisation and project methods used in England, went hand in hand with a pragmatic reassessment of Howard's garden city model, whose innovative urban forms drew more interest than its planned economic self-sufficiency, which was deemed to be unrealistic. The garden city was thus far from the focal point of the debate, which was fuelled by other foreign models that MPs, local officials and town planners drew lessons from. These lessons included the urgent need for legislation covering the development of urban zones and giving municipalities the means to implement effective urban policy (building up land banks), as well as other urban models combining sanitary requirements and aesthetic concerns.

Henri Sellier's Urban Models and Their Implementation at the Affordable Housing Office of the Seine Department We often think of Henri Sellier in association with the garden city model. Indeed, for Sellier – as mayor of the Paris suburb of Suresnes and a tireless defender of workers' housing, Offices for Affordable Housing (or HBM), and rational planning for the suburbs – the garden city model guaranteed decent housing. However, while Sellier always considered the garden city to be the ideal urban form, combining the benefits of the city and the countryside, he was also a pragmatist. Thus, he adapted his beliefs and principles to the requirements of demographic growth and industrialisation in the Paris region. Prioritising actual projects over orthodoxy, he favoured the development of rental housing in high-rise multidwellings, alongside owner-occupied detached houses. In his commentary and in the projects that he managed, the expression ‘‘city garden'' therefore covers different realities.

Henri Sellier : A Mayor Serving the Circulation of Knowledge about and for the City (1919-1939) Henri Sellier, famous for his municipal politics in Suresnes and for his commitment on urban issues within the General Council for the Seine Department and in the founding of the École des Hautes Études Urbaines (School for Higher Urban Studies), was also a leader in the French ‘‘municipalist'' movement in the interwar period. As founder of the Union for French Cities and Towns, a member of the office for the International Union of Cities, Sellier continually worked to develop a current for the production and diffusion of documentation aimed at municipalities, in a context of increased technical specialisation for local administrations. By using the example of urban hygiene, we can see how much Sellier was a man of networks, at the heart of ties among elected officials and between elected officials and practitioners. Archives held in provincial towns also illustrate the limits of his efforts.

Henri Sellier, Raymond Unwin and Town Planning. The Epistemological Challenges of Translation Recently, two different French translations were published of Raymond Unwin's major work, Town Planning in Practice, an Introduction to the Art of Designing Cities and Suburbs. One of these is a revision of William Mooser's already old translation. The other offers an unpublished translation attributable to Henri Sellier. By both its semantic content and the choice of words, Unwin's work symbolises the confrontation of ideas in the practical and theoretical fields of town planning. Henri Sellier, as a legal scholar, politician and promoter of early teachings of town planning, viewed town planning as a collective work for the general interest. Conversely, William Mooser's translation favoured the architect's standpoint and his role in town planning, conceived as a sort of large-scale architecture. This controversial subject is clearly still relevant today.

Analysis and Reflections about the Periodization of Urban History through the Collection Atlas Historique des Villes de France By investigating the history of urban topography as shown in the 49 volumes of the Atlas Historique des Villes de France, we note that the interconnections proposed by the authors are rarely given justification, even if they are obvious. Moreover, a review of this periodization shows that the periods are not uniform, they correspond to different lengths of time, and they are based on events that are sometimes of a political, social, economic or topographical nature. This article proposes to examine the nature of the breaking points used to build this periodization, while also carrying out a temporal analysis of the information in the articles in order to reflect on the ways of breaking the history of towns down into periods. The subsequent conclusions give insight into the nature of time and urban temporalities.