Gilles Ragot

• Université Bordeaux Montaigne

The coastal city Royan was destroyed in 1945 to 85% and was rebuild first of all by Claude Ferret and Louis Simon. The reconstruction of the city contributed significantly the formation of the modernism in the 1950’s. However, this avant-garde image did not express in the first projects, they still where in the continuity of the monumental architec...

Lors des celebrations du centenaire de la naissance de Le Corbusier en 1987, un dessinateur suisse l’avait caricature en geant hallucine, ecrasant les immeubles d’une rue traditionnelle, et poussant devant lui une foule effrayee dans un chaos indescriptible. Non sans humour, l’affiche titrait comme un mauvais film de serie B : « Le Corbusier revien...

Emerging from his realm of predilection of basic research, the architectural historian is increasingly invited to engage in the field of applied research. He is called upon by politicians, and even architects, to give his opinion on the preservation of national heritage buildings or their archival traces, on the nature of projects of transformation...

From the beginning of the thirties to the mid-forties, Le Corbusier presented a number of rural planning projects: the radiant farm and village, the rural house, the farming unit. All these studies, none of which were ever put into practice, are registered in a much wider treatise on “total urbanism” and on the question of territorial planning whic...

IntroductionFigure 1Royan en ruines après les bombardements alliés de 1945Fonds Ferret, Ecole d’architecture et du paysage, Bordeaux. Extrait : L'invention d'une ville. Royan Cinquante. Paris : Monum, Editions du Patrimoine, 2003. P. 28Dans la nuit du 5 janvier 1945, un violent bombardement allié détruit la station balnéaire de Royan à plus de 85 %...

The voluminous archives of the Hennebique engineering firm, which was a pioneer in reinforced concrete construction, provides an example of processing procedures and priorities for architectural records. The completeness and heterogeneous nature of architectural records greatly influence processing time. It is necessary to balance the needs of both...