Le Havre, the City Rebuilt by Auguste Perret

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Following exchanges between the World Heritage Centre and the State Party since 2019 regarding a high-rise building project within the World Heritage property, a report on its state of conservation was requested in November 2022 by 1 February 2023 and an Advisory mission encouraged by the end of 2022. No report was received from the State Party, but additional information previously requested on the Tour Alta project was made available in January. A summary of the issue is presented below based on the documents received from the State Party since 2019.

In June 2019, the World Heritage Centre received information from third parties regarding a proposed high-rise building project to be built inside the boundaries of the property. In September 2019, the State Party sent to the World Heritage Centre a Heritage Impact Assessment (HIA), which had been prepared in October 2018, for a so-called ‘Tour Videcoq’, 55 m high, to be built next to the Bassin du Roy, in a central part of Perret’s composition. The tower was lower than the St Joseph Church belltower and the Town Hall, but much higher than Perret’s tallest residential blocks (40 m). The building permit for the project had been issued in December 2018. The project was not mentioned in the Management Plan for the property, which dates from June 2018.

ICOMOS reviewed the HIA in early 2020, raised concerns about the high-rise building project’s impact on the Outstanding Universal Value (OUV) of the property and indicated, amongst others, that the tower needed to be reduced in height. It also requested additional information on height regulations, views of the project, a landscape analysis and a moratorium on the building permit issued. The State Party replied in February 2021 by informing of the change of name of the project – now Tour Alta – but without providing the additional information requested, nor putting in place a moratorium, with the result that implementation of the project continued. In its review of August 2021, ICOMOS reiterated its concerns about the impact of the tower on the property’s OUV, again requested a moratorium and advised that the State Party be requested to reduce the height of the tower and rework the project. On 20 September 2021, representatives of the World Heritage Centre and ICOMOS held a meeting in Le Havre with the city authorities and representatives of the State Party to receive information on the ongoing project.

In February 2022 the State Party sent a report including explanations of the rationale for the selection and approval of the Tour Alta project and some visuals of the project in its urban context. In response to this report, the World Heritage Centre suggested a meeting with the State Party and ICOMOS, which could only take place in November 2022 in the presence of the Mayor of Le Havre. Following this meeting, the State Party provided additional information in January 2023 on the project and the decision-making process leading to its approval, which was the subject of a Technical Review by ICOMOS in March 2023. The documentation submitted in January 2023 revealed that the height of the tower had been increased throughout the process, from 55 m to 63.18 m. Eventually, on 4 April 2023, the State Party invited an Advisory mission to the property, which took place on 31 May and 1 June 2023, to study the impacts of the Tour Alta on the attributes of the property’s OUV, the level of modification of their sensitivity to change and the treatment of public spaces around the Tour Alta as well as to discuss with the responsible authorities the decision-making process that had led to this project, the protection and management measures in place for the property and their possible improvements.

The design process for the high-rise building project – initially named Tour Videcoq, then changed to Tour Alta – started at least as early as 2017, with a design competition awarded to the design studio Hamonic + Masson & Associates. However, the World Heritage Centre did not receive an HIA for the project until September 2019, several months after the building permit for the project was granted. The ICOMOS Technical Review of the HIA revealed that the proposed height of the Tour Alta seemed too high, based on the OUV of Le Havre and the conditions of its integrity and authenticity, and should be significantly reduced. Alternatively, the project was to be transferred to another location. In particular, the Statement of OUV notes that “Le Havre is exceptional for its unity and integrity” and “The inscribed property […] represents a homogenous architectural and urban ensemble”; it also notes that “Perret’s project reflects his ideal: to create a homogenous ensemble where all the details are designed to the same pattern, thus creating a kind of Gesamtkunstwerk on the urban scale”. It is clear that the architectural language, dynamic mass, dimensions, height and treatment of materials mark the distance of the new tower from Perret’s language.

The additional information requested was partly shared by the State Party at a very advanced stage of the project’s implementation, in January 2023. Examination of this additional information confirmed the negative impacts of the Tour Alta on the OUV of the property. It was also found that the proposed changes to the project were of a local/palliative nature and did not affect the nature of its architecture, location and height, nor its negative impacts on the OUV of the property. These modifications cannot be considered compensatory measures for the negative impacts caused by the tower. The design and construction of the now fully built high-rise Tour Alta within the World Heritage property occurred without prior notification to the World Heritage Centre, in accordance with Paragraph 172 of the Operational Guidelines, although the process began prior to 2017, when the design competition to select a project proposal for the urban plot was completed and the project option was selected. Exchanges between the World Heritage Centre and the State Party did not begin until 2019, following a communication from a third party, when the project had already been approved.

However, the State Party could have seized the opportunity to apply Paragraph 172 of the Operational Guidelines at different stages of this process: before launching the design competition – in this way, technical advice could have been obtained to develop the Terms of References for the competition in a way that would ensure that the attributes underlying the property’s OUV, integrity and authenticity are respected at the design stage of the project; after the competition, to seek views on the selected project and advice on the HIA process; or after the HIA report was prepared to seek comments from the World Heritage Centre and ICOMOS on the assessment methods and on the impacts of the project on the OUV the property, particularly in terms of integrity and authenticity.

It is thus regrettable that the State Party did not comply with the provisions of the Operational Guidelines and engage in dialogue with the World Heritage Centre and ICOMOS earlier in the process of developing the project and that it did not take advantage of the advisory opportunities provided for in Paragraph 172 of the Operational Guidelines to seek, while it was still possible to do so, appropriate solutions to ensure that the OUV of the property was fully preserved.

The Tour Alta has meanwhile been built, and the joint World Heritage Centre/ICOMOS Advisory mission in June 2023 confirmed the desk assessment of the impacts of the Tour Alta, notably that its presence in the heart of the World Heritage property, its height and its architecture (a twisted tower) had a tangible impact on the visual qualities of the OUV of the property and on the overall perception of the city rebuilt by Auguste Perret; its high density carries risks for the urban balance, which is an attribute of the property’s OUV. These two factors combined have an impact on the integrity of the property, which may no longer be guaranteed. The mission recommended that the State Party take urgent measures, with the support of the World Heritage Centre and ICOMOS, to reduce as far as possible the Tour Alta’s visual and landscape impacts by, for example, lightening the shades of its facade cladding as much as possible and avoiding any night lighting, and to control its urban impact by ensuring a better interface with the public spaces at the foot of the tower and the urban fabric – Quai Videcoq and Rue de Paris and in relation to the Saint-François district – based on an ad hoc urban planning study. The mission considered it essential to reinforce the structural continuity of the public spaces. The mission also underlined that a major effort is needed to take account of the property’s OUV in all municipal regulations. The mission also provided a set of detailed recommendations to enhance the effectiveness of the protection and management measures in place including the implementation of the 2011 Recommendation on the Historic Urban Landscape as a tool for integrating heritage conservation with urban development plans and processes with a view to the city’s future development.

Based on the mission’s recommendations, it is recommended that the Committee request that a Reactive Monitoring mission be deployed to the property in 2024 in order to examine the overall state of conservation of the property, follow up on the recommendations of the Advisory mission of 2023, and provide the corresponding recommendations to the Committee, in particular on actions to improve the management and control tools for construction or restoration projects to avoid that such a situation may occur again.