Strolling through the Abbey district in Grenoble is a unique part of the history of Grenoble at the beginning of the 20th century; it is to discover the first extensions to the south of the old fortifications, a history of working-class housing and municipal actions initiated by Mayor Paul Mistral, but also a social history, “The heritage here is us,” say the former residents of the neighbourhood. It is also about understanding how buildings have adapted to new uses, how transitional urban planning is organized today or how the reuse of materials is an issue both for the renovation of the City of the Abbey and for the transformation of its public spaces.
Together with an architectural historian, we will discover how the area has evolved and we will visit some of its remarkable buildings: the library of the Abbey-Les-Bains, the Armenian Apostolic Church Archangel Saint-Gabriel, the Maison des Habitant.e.s and especially the Cité de l'Abbaye, Habitation à Bon Marché (HBM) labeled "Remarkable contemporary architecture". The walk will be punctuated by various meetings of people invested in the neighborhood and the projection of short films showing the City at different times until the current transformations. It will end, a glass in hand, with a discussion on the issues of the current project and the logic of re-employment in the workplace.
Where we will also discover where the name Abbaye-les-Bains comes from…