Off-programme: interview with Jean-François Fountaine, Mayor of La Rochelle
‘Constraints engender creativity, but don’t over-use them!’ While on a visit to the Lavoisier school building site this past March, Anne Pezzoni and Denis Simonis went to La Rochelle to interview the contracting authority, Jean-François Fountaine -mayor of La Rochelle and supporter of a living heritage that is nothing like a museum-town.
by Christelle Granja
Interview initially published on AA’s special issue No.49 ‘archi5, offbeat’ available on our online shop.
AA: You aim to make the city and conurbation of La Rochelle carbon-neutral by 2040. Did this objective influence your arbitration for the ‘Lavoisier city of sciences an nature’ project in Villeneuve-les-Salines, due for completion in April 2024?
Jean-François Fountaine: Yes, that idea plays a central role in the urban renewal of the Villeneuve district. For years now, our city’s policy has been deeply concerned with environmental issues: this was already the case under Michel Crépeau – who was minister of the environment under François Mitterand [And mayor of La Rochelle for 28 years. Ed.]. But the vision of ecology they backed was of a more ‘humanist’ nature: while they wanted fewer cars in town, it was primarily in order to talk to each other more, to seek a better quality of life. At the time, the question of carbon footprint had not yet been raised, or even of global warming. Of course, this environmental outlook has changed over time. One event in particular was decisive for the region: in 2010, following Storm Xynthia, a quarter of the town was flooded. For an old city that considers itself to be invulnerable, it was a shock! As a result, a decision was made to take action on the causes of the catastrophe. In the Villeneuve district, this meant in particular the land restoration or ‘rewilding’ – with the assistance of the water agency – of a marsh that we had been trying to drain for decades because it was a source of mosquitoes and disease, and also because reclaiming it would enable the creation of land for development. We became aware of the heritage and environmental richness of this aquatic environment, which is both a biodiversity reserve and a carbon sink. Villeneuve is now a green district, which benefits from its vicinity to the water. The Lavoisier school was built in the nineteen-sixties, during a period of high birth rates, when things had to be done quickly… It had become extremely neglected. Our first reaction to the existing building was to knock everything down and start from scratch. But the question of carbon footprint soon arose, and with it the issue of reuse – for instance of the foundations that had been built on 300 piles driven into this marshland. Beyond that, the idea was to give ourselves the most ambitious environmental goal possible, because this redevelopment and extension work – carried out with archi5 as contractor – is symbolic of our ‘La Rochelle Territoire zero carbone’ project. The Lavoisier school is THE major undertaking of our mandate. In our eyes, it is a gateway to the Villeneuve urban renewal programme, and is destined to become one of the most attractive elements of this working-class district, one of its hallmarks. We want people to want to put their children into this school!
Read: ‘Blue Carbon in Coastal Ecosystems’ An interview with Christine Dupuy, professor and researcher at La Rochelle University, on the importance of preserving aquatic environments and restoring them through renaturation, published in the September issue of AA ‘Water, Common Good’.
Anne Pezzoni: For our office too, this is a good and a non- standard project, that we are happy to be tackling. It creates a strong link between the wetland environment and outdoor recreational spaces, making the water a central part of the pedagogical and play sphere. Gentle slopes and a pier allow children to get closer to the landscape in complete safety. The programme you established was participative, giving free rein to the designers to make suggestions. This way of dealing with things is very rare. What is your view on this issue of the impromptu?
J.-F.F.: When I work with people, I don’t like to dictate what they must do. I prefer to appeal to their creativity and their inventiveness. The same logic permeates the municipality’s working methods. Our administration is not just a simple executive body; we are driven by proposals, in the context of a very egalitarian approach to management, in which everyone is committed to environmental values.
AA: Is this ecological ambition sometimes difficult to impose? What other imperatives does it come up against?
J.-F.F.: Some decisions are not easy, that’s true. But in the case of the Lavoisier school, we supplied the means to achieve our ambitions. It is the first time in fifty years that a school has been renovated, in La Rochelle. The reason for this is demographical: we went from 11,000 children in the nineteen-seventies to 5,500 children today. Over the same period, we closed twenty schools out of a total of sixty. But it wasn’t a case of giving Lavoisier a diamond and neglecting the surrounding areas. In order to avoid creating a two-tiered district, we increased the maintenance budget for the other schools in the district by a factor of five, in particular for insulation works and for ‘desealing’ to restore airflow and permeability to the courtyards.
AA: Setting up school courtyards is not always easy. What obstacles need to be overcome in order to move towards a more sober architecture?
J.-F.F.: Renovating some schools is rather an impossible mission. This is the case, in particular, for the Paul Doumer school: this is a listed building, located on marshland, and which needs complete renovation… It’s very tricky, but it has to be done, because the schools play an essential role in housing estates. Once they have been built, work still needs to be done for the future and the redevelopment of the district. Because if we do not pursue a social housing policy today and tomorrow, then in thirty years La Rochelle will be like Cannes: in other words an undeniably pretty town, but one that excludes more than it includes, with an extremely high average age and income! In short, an entirely different housing model than the one we espouse.
A.P.: As architects, we are used to constraints, because we must abide by many standards. As the representative of La Rochelle, you are also bound by many obligations. How do you deal with them?
J.-F.F.: My initial response will be an about- face: like you, I think that constraints engender creativity. But in order to leave free the spaces that foster inventiveness, constraints should not be overused. Finding that balance is our daily reality. La Rochelle is incredible with regard to heritage: it is the only Atlantic port city in Europe that was not destroyed during the last war. Saint-Nazaire, Brest, Le Havre, Saint-Malo were not spared, just like their Belgian or British counterparts. But we must also allow this heritage to live, and not turn it into a museum. What I hope for from the architecture world, and in a wider sense from all the creatives in the region, is that they will bring new ideas. And there were many for the Lavoisier school project. It was not that easy however, as national education is extremely standardised and the domain of lawmakers ans laws related to childhood, to pedagogy, etc. This non-standard aspect resulted in the sharing of certain spaces, and also in the use of naturally-sourced materials, in particular wood and straw. In view of the depletion of resources, we are coming up with sustainable solutions today that we could not have imagined using fifteen years ago…
Read: ‘Archi5: Feet in the Water’ on the Cité des sciences et de la nature Lavoisier project in La Rochelle, by archi5.
A.P.: One of the keys to ecological sustainability is using local resources, but free trade makes this practice very complex. How can the equation be balanced?
J.-F.F.: As a shipbuilder, I had extensive international connections, delivering products throughout the world. Today, I do not want La Rochelle to shut itself off from the world, especially since our region – through Alstom – builds high- speed trains for the global market. But this specific, limited international skill must be accompanied by a return to local production in many fields. Some mass importats are illogical. This is true in the food sector; offering products that come from the other side of the world in our local markets is nonsensical – and it is also true in the construction sector. Historically, La Rochelle was built using stone from local quarries. In this area, we are on the border between North and South, between the ‘langue d’oc’ of the South and the ‘langue d’oïl’ of the North, and this blend can be seen in our heritage – where slate rubs shoulders with tile. I support this narrative of locally sourced goods because it is clear that we are going to have to return to more local value chains and supplies.
AA: As an elected official, what do you use as leverage to promote more local, more sober architecture
J.-F.F.: Since 2014, we have been developing the Atlantech district, which is a concentration of low-carbon buildings and plant that is intended to be an example in the field of sustainable transport, energy consumption, and eco-construction. We have also set up a regional platform devoted to energy-efficiency retrofits, which helps support professionals and private owners in the process of reducing their carbon footprint. We did this because it is often difficult to navigate through the maze of ‘green’ solutions on offer, sometimes in the guise of greenwashing. This platform provides the resources needed to make the right choices (for example, for changing a window or insulating a façade), and also guides users towards existing financing solutions – because there are already many grants and incentives in existence, such as our region’s ‘MaPrimeRénov’’ and so on. There is also an extensive network of local companies that need support: it’s all very well to launch calls for bids with environmental stipulations, but it still has to be possible for tenderers to respond! This is not some dream, or a whim: we are doing it. The idea is that each of our actions should be informed by this policy. For that matter, one of the city’s vice- chairmen is responsible solely for tackling this Zero Carbon goal. In the autumn of 2023, La Rochelle was awarded the 5-star status for ‘Climat-Air- Énergie’ – under the ‘Territoire Engagé Transition Écologique’ programme, aimed at measuring a community’s environmental intervention. This was in recognition of a series of actions to improve the environmental performance of our public buildings, schools, stadiums, etc., as well as to reduce the impact of urban transport. This was achieved in particular by setting up electric transport for public officials, since the city and conurbation employ 2,300 people. Above all, it involved limiting urban spread through increasing urban density. We are also trying to decentralise as many useful services as possible, and relocate them to the districts in order to avoid unnecessary travel. This goal is more difficult on the scale of the conurbation than it is on the scale of the city alone, because the wider metropolitan area is larger, and more rural, so the obstacles to be overcome are greater.
Denis Simonis: Do you support a global vision of urbanism across the whole of the region?
J.-F.F.: It’s difficult, because the conurbation is very fragmented. The Laleu district, for example, was once a village with farms, fields and vineyards. You cannot build there in the same way as you would in La Pallice, which is an industrial port, a product of the 19th century. Similarly in Port-neuf, a district where the first low-rent council homes were created, and where the self-built houses of the Castor movement can still be found. La Rochelle is not just the old town, we do not have a unique architectural style; we have to make sure that everybody progresses. You must also remember that our city has alternated between periods of prosperity and periods of great poverty; it became very rich through the slave trade, and very poor when slavery was abolished. It became very affluent again with the rise of colonialism, and very poor when it ended. In the 1970s, the shipyards closed, and the industry collapsed. But today, La Rochelle has a new vigour, in particular with the arrival of the university – the unemployment rate has fallen below the national average. It is clear that we must progress towards a society based on moderation and restraint, but what will the energy forms of tomorrow be? What will the modes of transport of tomorrow be…?
A.P.: As an elected official, you have to resolve these things!
J.-F.F.: It is normal that a group’s decision- making ability should reflect their history. We are crushed by four hundred years of history! Getting rid of cars to give more space to pedestrians is not without its critics, nor without sometimes unfounded fears – that it may “kill off local trade”, and cannot happen in a day. We are still a conservative country, and La Rochelle is no exception.
A.P.: In terms of ecology, what is your goal for the future, especially on the energy question?
J.-F.F.: With regard to transport, which represents the biggest carbon emitter, we decided against creating a tramline. We are gambling on the likelihood that in the future, self-driving vehicles will make rails redundant. As always, this is a question of choice and prediction; this is what makes public life so fascinating.
Read the AA special issue No. 49: ‘archi5, offbeat’, available on our eshop.
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