Mantes-la-Jolie (FR)

SITE/CONTEXT

The city of Mantes-la-Jolie

Located on the left bank of a Seine’s meander, Mantes-la-Jolie has always had a relationship with the river: a trading port in the Middle Ages, a holiday resort for several kings of France, an industrial town accessible by rail since the mid-19th century, but also a witness to the development of river transport and its impact on the natural environment.
Today, the city is part of the Greater Paris metropolitan area, of which the Seine forms the backbone. Situated at 50 km from the capital, it is the hub of the Seine axis, linking the Parisian basin to Normandy and its river and sea ports.
Mantes-la-Jolie is home to Europe’s largest modern urban development district, the Val-Fourré, which was marked by the major housing construction policies of the 1960s and 1970s. From the outset, it has been a laboratory for social, urban and environmental innovation. Faced with an industrial crisis in the 1980s, it was one of the precursors of the first urban renewal programme in 1995, and in 2014 was listed as one of France’s first eco-districts.

Reflection and project sites

The Entre-Lacs site, located along the Seine between the consolidated city centre of Mantes- la-Jolie and the Val-Fourré district, made of an 11-hectare industrial wasteland nestled between two lakes created by former quarries.While this urban and landscape location is remarkable, access and use of the site are currently limited due to the high level of soil pollution. The town wishes to promote a site with a unique architecture and history: seventy-seven industrial buildings from all eras (1800 to 2020), some of them very large, as well as a chimney and machinery still in place, bear witness to the site’s productive past and embody the local working class memory.

QUESTIONS FOR THE COMPETITORS

How can the Entre-Lacs site be reconnected to the natural and urban landscapes?
How can we strengthen the green, blue and brown webs and make them part of the fabric of urban public spaces, as well as citizens’ uses? How can we take advantage of the relationship with water, its different natures, assets and risks? How can we regenerate the site’s soil, which is largely artificialized and polluted?

Re-sourcing the city through its material heritage
How can we enhance the value of existing built and non-built assets in line with the “3Rs” principle (reduce, reuse, recycle)? What uses would enable the site to be immediately reused and opened to the public, so that there is no break in the life of the site and the city? How can the site continue to generate added value for the city and its inhabitants, through experimentation and sustainability?

Re-sourcing the city through collective memory
How can the site’s history be shared and enhanced to strengthen links between neighborhoods? What innovative programming can be proposed around this common base? What forms of transitional and concerted urban planning are needed to encourage the reconstitution of a genuine part of the city, welcoming a diversity of uses?