Monuments publics dans l’espace urbain à Nantes, aux XVIIIe et XIXe siècles

Abstract

Public monuments in the urban space of Nantes during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The city of Nantes provides a significant illustration of the relationships between public monuments and urban space during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Three eighteenth-century examples — the Hôtel de Ville (town hall), the palace of the Chambre des Comptes of Brittany and the Théâtre Graslin — show how the architects take on the definition and arrangement of urban forms, so that the monument can benefit from a real urban « staging ». During the nineteenth century, three new major public buildings — the Museum, the law courts and the Fine Arts Museum — illustrate a change in the situation. The architects may well design the buildings, but the surrounding streets are now the responsibility of engineers. The monument and its environment are treated as separate entities, breaking the earlier dialogue between the monument and public space. During the twentieth century, the architect Coutan used gardens in order to recover some control over urban forms, but, by this time, the construction of urban monuments had lost its impetus.