Building the city as a stage, the example of Nantes

Laboratoire Ambiances AAU - CRENAU, ENSA Nantes, 6 Quai François Mitterrand, BP 16202, 44262 Nantes CEDEX 2 Nantes, France

^* Corresponding author: emmanuelle.gangloff@crenau.archi.fr

Abstract

At a time when cities try to stand out from one another, the construction of ambiances is brought back to the foreground of urban, social and cultural dynamics in metropolises. With this contribution, we aim at taking the example of Nantes and the Machines of the Isle of Nantes to show the transformations of an industrial territory into a cultural open stage with cultural practices. Indeed, following the shutdown of the shipyards in the 1990s, the city pursued a major cultural policy to make the industrial wastelands attractive. In successive steps, the temporary artistic practices changed urban ones, based on the question of ambiances and their narrative. Favouring the implementation of projects taking place in public spaces, the city became a 360°-urban scene. As opposed to a generic city, Nantes turned urban scenography into a way to single itself out, by accompanying the creation of plots and narratives around its territory. Between artistic experiments and narrative, Nantes thus appears as a stage-city that invites to include user experiences.