Modernizing the Provincial City: Toulouse 1945-1975

336 Pages·1998·10.395 MB·English

by  Rosemary Wakeman

Modernizing the Provincial City

Modernizing the
Provincial City
Toulouse, 1945-1975
ROSEMARY WAKEMAN
HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS
Cambridge, Massachusetts
London, England
1997
For Gabrielle and Jessica
Copyright © 1997 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Wakeman, Rosemary.
Modernizing the provincial city : Toulouse, 1945-1975 /
Rosemary Wakeman.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-674-58072-9
1. City planning—France—Toulouse—History—20th century.
2. Toulouse (France)—Economic conditions. I. Title.
HT169.F72T68 1997
307.Γ216Ό94862—DC21 97-23077
Contents
Acknowledgments xi
Abbreviations xiii
Introduction 1
Red Flower of Summer: Toulouse before 1945 11
The City Half as Old as Time 11
Toulouse in Decline 20
The Second World War 30
Regionalism, Municipalism, and Modernization 40
The Roots of Regionalism 43
Municipalism and Modern Urban Reform 48
The Region as Economic Space 54
Modernization under Vichy 57
Modernization and the Resistance 61
Constructing Modernism in the 1950s 69
Planning Postwar Toulouse 73
Public Housing and the Built Environment 77
The Battle for Central Toulouse 91
The New Regionalism 103
The City of the Future: Planning in the 1960s 111
The Shift to Expansionism 114
The Suburban Dream World: Le Mirail 125
The Model of Technopolis: Rangueil-Lespinet 133
vi Contents
5 The City as Bazaar: Tradition, Modernization, and
Economic Culture in the 1950s 146
Liberation and Reconstruction 154
Poverty amidst Prosperity: The Depression of
the 1950s 159
The Reaction to Regulation 166
6 Toulouse as Industrial Capital 182
The Cradle of Aviation 182
The Concorde as Metaphor 199
The Electronic Revolution 205
7 Gentrification and the Capitalist Landscape 217
Exporting to Survive 217
The Conversion of Mentality 228
Downtown Toulouse 249
Conclusion: Constructing the New Toulouse 265
Notes 275
Bibliography 313
Index 319
Illustrations
1. The historic districts of central Toulouse along the
Garonne River. 14
2. The Place du Capitole. Courtesy Jean Dieuzaide. 17
3. La ville rose. The brick and tile of old Toulouse. Courtesy
Jean Dieuzaide. 19
4. A troubadour on the boulevards of Toulouse, 1954.
Courtesy Jean Dieuzaide. 24
5. The Empalot, Cité Daste public housing project. Courtesy
Documentation Française/Interphotothèque; photo:
M. Brigaud/Sodel. 82
6. Saint-Sernin Cathedral and the old city surrounded by
"walls of concrete." Courtesy Conseil Général de la
Haute-Garonne/Archives départmentales/
Photothèque. 89
7. Metropolitan Toulouse and the suburban development
programs: Le Mirail, the Rangueil-Lespinet scientific
complex, and the Toulouse-Blagnac aeronautic
center. 118
8. Le Mirail, view of Reynerie Lake. Courtesy
Documentation Française/Interphotothèque; photo:
M. Brigaud/Sodel. 128
9. Production line for the Caravelle at the Sud-Aviation
assembly hangar, Toulouse-Blagnac. Courtesy S.T.C.
Mairie de Toulouse. 196
10. Test pilot André Turcat flies the Concorde over Toulouse
in tribute to Charles de Gaulle on the night of his death,
November 9, 1970. Courtesy Jean Dieuzaide. 202

Acknowledgments
I have many people to thank for this book, written as it was over time in
many places. Its roots are in the history department at the University of
California, Davis, where the mentoring and friendship of Roy Willis, Ted
Margadant, and Dan Brower sustained my research as a graduate student
and as a faculty member there. It often seemed a very long distance be-
tween the Garonne and Sacramento Valleys, but their intellectual wisdom
and superb grasp of urban history provided the bridge that made this book
possible. My sincere thanks to Herrick Chapman, Ellen Furlough, Julia Trill-
ing, Tyler Stovall, Suzanna Barrows, Paul Rabinow, Gabrielle Hecht, and H.
Roderick Kedward, who read various drafts of the manuscript and gener-
ously offered their ideas, criticism, and advice. I have gratefully embraced
their suggestions, and the book has profited enormously by them. I thank
Tyler Stovall and Julia Trilling for many fruitful discussions on the city.
Gabrielle Hecht, Robert Frost, Joe Corn, and my colleagues in the Program
on Science, Technology, and Society at Stanford University helped me deci-
pher the history of technology. I appreciate the support and suggestions
of the history faculty at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, especially
Russell Buhite, John Muldowney, and John Bohstedt. The staff at the
Hoover Institute, Stanford University, as well as the inter-library loan staff
at the University of California, Berkeley, were of tremendous help in finding
resources. Research for this book was conducted in Toulouse with the aid of
grants from the University of California, Davis and the University of Ten-
nessee, Knoxville. I thank the National Endowment for the Humanities for
their Travel-to-Collections Fellowship that helped complete the project.
In France, Marcel Roncayolo and André Burguière at the Ecole des
Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales initially guided my research and gra-
ciously led my passage into French urban theory and history. Roger Brunet
provided decisive aid in the book's conception. As well as helping me tie the
project together, Guy Jalabert at the Center for Urban Studies at the Univer-
χ Acknowledgments
sity of Toulouse Le Mirail introduced me to Toulouse when I first arrived as
an American graduate student ready to take on the city. Professor Jalabert
ushered in a world of amiable, talkative, perceptive Toulousains who made
my stays there not simply successful but intoxicating. Each time, it was
difficult to leave Toulouse. And so, my heartfelt thanks to Professor Jalabert,
and to the extraordinary people at the Préfecture office, the Toulouse
Mayor's Office, the Agence d'Urbanisme, the Ecole d'Architecture at the
University of Toulouse Le Mirail, the Municipal Library, the Chambre de
Commerce and the Chambre des Métiers, at the Toulouse offices of DATAR
and INSEE, and at CNES, Airbus Industries, and Aérospatiale. I am particularly
indebted to Madame Maillard of the Archives Municipales, who generously
contributed her knowledge and support to this project. During my stays at
Toulouse, many ordinary citizens freely gave their time and energy to my
incessant questions and interviews. And I must admit, in my zeal I at-
tempted to interrogate everyone. I was treated to tours of the French Space
Center, lunches at office cafeterias, and street dances, and driven around to
see the sights, brought home for dinner, taken to local conferences—all to
talk about Toulouse and the changes in its life and landscape. I thank all of
these people sincerely for their generosity of spirit and their hospitality and
hope that I have represented their city well.
I am grateful to Aida Donald and Betty Suttell at Harvard University
Press for their enthusiasm and support for this book, and to the staff at ESNE
for their help preparing the manuscript. My thanks as well to William Truitt
for his superb map designs. I spent wonderful hours with Madame and
Monsieur Jean Dieuzaide among his extraordinary photographs of Tou-
louse, and I heartily thank them for their help and generosity. Madame
Geneviève Dieuzeide of the Department of Photography at La Documenta-
tion Française, as well as Madame Bernadette Suau and Madame Marie-
Hélène Ristorcelli at the Departmental Archives of the Haute-Garonne,
helped me select illustrations among a plethora of superb photographs, as
did Madame Catherine Pra at the Aérospatiale Aircraft Museum and Mon-
sieur Coe at the Mayor's Office.
Finally, my deepest thanks to Tom Wakeman, for his enthusiasm,
encouragement, and willingness to read and critique the manuscript in all
of its many stages. Our discussions on urban and regional planning pro-
vided a constant source of ideas. His exceptional insights and clarity of
vision, as well as his love and support, were my inspiration. And to our
remarkable daughters, Gabrielle and Jessica, who have spent their child-
hood patiently listening to tales of Toulouse, I dedicate this book.