Les grands ensembles de standing vus par leurs habitants : quand l’ancrage fait l’image

Résumé En

The international return of verticality in urban forms raises questions about the representations associated with these types of buildings today. In France, moreover, we find ourselves caught between two very different discourses: that of the developers and urban planners around ongoing projects, hence without historical perspective; and the wider public discourse around the negative image associated with big social housing estates. On the other hand, by examining big, high-end residential estates, which have so far received little scholarly attention, one can elicit longer term representations of buildings that have not undergone processes of deterioration. Based on two case studies in Lyon, this article shows that the residential trajectories of some of the inhabitants explain the evolution of the narratives around such large luxury residential estates, relating to successive periods: the period of modernity, the period of deterioration, and the period of reconfiguration and rehabilitation.