On Tuesday March 14, the Louvre Lens Vallée, Perles d’histoire and {CORRESPONDANCES DIGITALES] organized a learning trip to Lens and Douai for around twenty heritage managers in charge of promoting the archives, collections and know-how of their companies and institutions. Coming from a wide variety of sectors (luxury goods, jewelry, winegrowing, banking, real estate, aeronautics, etc.), they were offered a rich program to discover, share and exchange views on the different approaches to heritage in this region of Hauts-de-France. They were able to discover the Louvre Lens Vallée, the Louvre museum’s conservation center (located in Lens), the Galibot (a hotel-restaurant created in a former coron) and the Imprimerie nationale’s Livre d’art et de l’Estampe workshop.
1. MAKING A REGION’S HERITAGE A GROUND FOR EXPERIMENTATION, DEVELOPMENT AND PARTICIPATION: THE EXAMPLE OF LOUVRE LENS VALLÉE.
STAGE 1 OF THE TRIP – Margherita Balzerani, Director of Louvre Lens Vallée, welcomes participants to our trip.
Created 10 years ago by the Communauté d’Agglomération de Lens-Liévin (Lens-Liévin Urban Community) to energize the area following the opening of Musée du Louvre-Lens, LLV is an incubator and gas pedal for cultural projects in the fields of crafts, arts and crafts, mediation, conservation and tourism.
Since its creation, the incubator has welcomed over 150 companies. Some of these companies work to promote and disseminate the identity of the Lens area. This is the case, for example, of the Gueule Noire brand, supported by LLV, which offers logotyped clothing to mark the sense of belonging to the coalfield. Others are working on solutions for preserving and enhancing the region’s heritage. Among the companies supported so far are Gigascope in 3D digitization, Onyo and Saola for digital and sensory immersion, and Protomotech, a real-time climate monitoring solution used at the Louvre Conservation Center.
In addition to supporting these companies, LLV, a true place of collective intelligence, has since 2018 set up a laboratory workshop with the University of Artois (the Museolab) where artists, craftsmen and students come together to experiment and set up mediation projects to serve the 85 museums located in Hauts-de-France.
In addition to its role as an incubator, Louvre Lens Vallée helps to energize the local entrepreneurial and creative fabric through a rich and stimulating events policy. A case in point is the Culturathon, which for its 6th edition (October 2022) brought together almost 70 students to work collaboratively for 36 hours with numerous professionals from the Ministry of Culture, Louvre-Lens, 9-9bis, Main Square Festival, Culture Commune (national stage), Arkéos (Douai museum-archaeological park)… These collaborations helped to identify numerous avenues for improving the eco-responsible policies of these various cultural operators.
Such initiatives enabled participants to share a range of participatory practices that could be implemented in their various fields of activity. These participative projects could help to link the heritage and know-how for which they are responsible with more societal and environmental issues. Following this first opening, the delegation visited the Louvre’s conservation center to discuss the best practices implemented there.
2. MAKING THE PRESERVATION OF COLLECTIONS A PLACE FOR STUDY AND TRAINING: SOME BEST PRACTICES SHARED WITH THE LOUVRE CONSERVATION CENTER.
STAGE 2 OF THE JOURNEY – Marie-Lys Margueritte, Managing Director of the Centre de conservation, introduced our participants to this exceptional place of conservation and study.
Located just a few meters from the Louvre Lens, the conservation center houses the institution’s Parisian collections, relocated 204 kilometers from Paris. A total of 40,000 square meters are dedicated to conserving, protecting, restoring and studying some 270,000 works of art, making the center one of the largest in Europe.
First, a few words about the genesis of this project. Located on the banks of the Seine, the Paris collection storeroom was not protected against flooding. Faced with this risk, the idea emerged in 2009 to outsource the reserves (initially in Cergy) and bring them together in a single location to ensure the same level of conservation. In 2013, with the opening of the Louvre Lens, it was decided to build the reserve center in the Hauts-de-France region, thus perpetuating the initiatives launched at that time. Construction began in 2016.
It took 2.5 years of work to construct the building, with a budget of 60 million euros financed by the Hauts-de-France Region’s own funds, the European FEDER program, contributions from the Louvre and Ministère de la culture, and sponsorship (5%).
Now open, the conservation center combines logistics (6 storage areas covering 9,600 m²), restoration and research. 11 workshops are available to restorers and researchers – an average of 70 professionals per month. It conserves the Louvre’s collections, as well as those of local museums on a temporary basis (on the advice of the scientific services of the departments in charge of the collections). The center also hosts training courses in close collaboration with the Institut National du Patrimoine, the Ecole du Louvre and the universities of Lille, Amiens and Arras. A team of 15 permanent staff run the center, welcome professionals and handle logistical operations. Unlike the Louvre Lens reserves, which can be visited, these are unfortunately not open to the public.
Faced with the challenges of the energy crisis, between 2020 and 2023 the conservation center set out to reduce its energy consumption (-15%). Waste production has also been optimized by reusing materials (reusing storage crates, repackaging foam, etc.) and testing packaging before use. Finally, to avoid the development of substantial logistical flows, the movement of professionals has been favored over that of reserves.
This second visit provided an opportunity for professionals to exchange best practices in terms of conservation, as well as the study and enhancement of the heritage of their respective collections. The visit also provided an opportunity to discuss the implementation of more environmentally-friendly conservation standards. Lunch was taken at a place that bears witness to the history of the Lens mining basin.
3. TURN A HERITAGE SITE INTO A LIVING SPACE: DISCOVER A HOTEL/RESTAURANT IN A FORMER CORON.
STAGE 3 OF THE JOURNEY – The Hôtel Louvre Lens restaurant (Le Galibot) welcomes us for lunch.
Opposite the Louvre Lens, this hotel-restaurant, located in a coron, bears witness to the town’s mining past. Formerly known as Cité 9, the 110-metre-long building comprised 26 houses inhabited by miners.
With respect for the site, a 4-star hotel has been in operation since November 2018. The various houses of the coron have been rehabilitated to create 52 rooms. The rooms and communal areas are reminiscent of the mining past, thanks to a choice of materials by the architects (Guillaume Da Silva and Claire Duthoit) in charge of the refurbishment: oak, rough bluestone, floors made from old turn-of-the-century railroads, the pewter bar and cement tiles.
The hotel is now operated by specialist manager Esprit de France. Nearby, an artists’ residence is under construction.
The third part of the event provided an opportunity for convivial exchanges, as well as a visit to an original site to provoke discussion among the participants about the possible mutations that certain heritage sites could undergo. Another example of mutation at work was discussed with a visit to the Atelier de l’Art et de l’Estampe in Douai.
4. TURNING ANCESTRAL KNOW-HOW INTO A LIVING HERITAGE: PROJECTS AT THE ART BOOK AND PRINT WORKSHOP OF THE NATIONAL PRINTING HOUSE.
STAGE 4 OF THE JOURNEY – Private visit with Director Marie Manuel de Condinguy, members of the Atelier and Luc Bernard, Scientific and Cultural Director of the Douaisis conurbation and Director of Arkéos Parc Archéologique.
The Atelier du Livre d’art et de l’Estampe was founded in 1640, and is considered the oldest printing workshop in the world still in operation.
Equipped with solid skills covering the whole spectrum of the typographic chain (design, engraving and typecasting, typesetting and letterpress printing) as well as intaglio printing, the Atelier du Livre d’art et de l’Estampe teams are made up of a dozen craftsmen and masters of art. They develop projects for institutions, companies, publishers and artists: creative and bibliophile books, prints, luxury products, exclusive identity typefaces, temporary exhibitions…
A collection of 35,000 books, 500,000 punches and around 100 letterpress, lithographic and intaglio printing presses are used to carry out these various projects. These many particularly old machines are still used by the Atelier’s teams. Thanks to this unique know-how, training courses are often offered to students and professionals.
Given these assets, a living museum will be created in 2026 to showcase these collections, machines and, above all, know-how. Located close to the train station, this new facility will offer visitors a tour of the site and workshops to encourage a hands-on, experimental approach. The new facility will also forge close links with other facilities in the area, including the Douai municipal library, Legendoria (a place for artistic creation based on tales and legends), Arkéos (an archaeological museum-park) and Orionis (a planetarium scheduled to open in May 2023).
This learning journey highlighted the variety of ways in which heritage can be enhanced. This variety is due to the richness of these regions’ natural, built and intangible heritage. It testifies to the many skills, emblematic sites, works and collections in the process of becoming part of the heritage, both originating in these territories and recently welcomed over the last ten years or so. Such diversity is also due to the wide range of approaches that have been adopted to build new cultural offerings, and to make this wealth of heritage a breeding ground for experimentation, development and forward-looking initiatives to support the conversion of the Lens and Douai areas to tourism and culture.
