Lecture on Heritagization of the Marais Neighborhood in Paris

The online lecture 'Heritagization of the Marais Neighborhood in Paris: Interplay between Public Policies, Urban Changes and Civil Society Initiatives' is given in the framework of the Una Europa PhD Workshop: Heritage Hybridisations: Concepts, Scales and Spaces.

History of heritagization of the Marais neighborhood in Paris leads us back to the beginning of the 20th century, when urbanization projects, insalubrity, lack of both public and private interest are threatening numerous private mansions from the 16th and 17th century, causing evictions, and influencing Le Corbusier’s project for the area: tearing it whole down and replacing by skyscrapers. Le Marais was not torn down, to the contrary – since then, it became one of the first “protected areas” according to the “Malraux law” from 1962; the second most visited Parisian neighborhood by tourists and leisure visitors; “an archetype” of a gentrified area; and an important part of identity for numerous inhabitants.

Putting in front different theoretical and methodological approaches, during this presentation, Isidora Stanković, Post-doctoral Researcher at Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, will tackle why the complex heritage of Le Marais today should be understood as a result of hybridization of various heritagization processes. Not only all these processes of use, preservation and transmission of the neighborhood’s past(s) have mobilized since the beginning of the 20th century various stakeholders: public authorities, cultural institutions and associations, inhabitants, tourism and commercial actors; but have also been highly interconnected, sometimes in tension, often triggering one another.