An iconic feature of the urban landscape, the Paris newsstand first appeared during the Industrial Age, replacing newspaper vendors. The first of these structures, designed by Gabriel Davioud to sell mass-circulation newspapers, was inaugurated in 1857 on the Grands Boulevards. Other models followed over the decades, featuring a variety of shapes and materials. In 2004, in an effort to revitalize this network, which was by then in crisis, the Paris City Council voted to entrust its administrative and commercial management to an external operator, designated as a public service concessionaire. The Administration for Display and Advertising (Administration d’affichage et de publicité, or AAP), renamed MédiaKiosk in 2009, was awarded the contract.In 2016, MédiaKiosk—which has since become a subsidiary of the JCDecaux Group—won the new contract for Paris newspaper kiosk and responsibility for managing relations with newsstand operators. The new model was designed by matali crasset, who advocates a design approach based on modularity, participation, and conviviality. She describes her practice as lying at the intersection of anthropology, social engagement, and artistic practice, with the aim of contributing to a shared way of living together. A filmed interview provides insight into her approach, sources of inspiration, and methodology.
Drawing on an extensive survey of thirty-six institutions (archives, libraries, museums, and writers’ houses), this article examines the status of facsimiles in heritage conservation and mediation practices, focusing on the distinctive nature of written documents, which entails specific modes of reproduction and exhibition. Taking into account the growing prominence of exhibitions in institutions dedicated to the written word, the survey reveals the limited esteem generally accorded to facsimiles: they are used when no alternative is available or when particularly fragile documents must be made accessible without being loaned. This attitude stems from a belief in the aura of the original, which remains a powerful value in the heritage sector and is thought to elicit emotional responses from visitors. Authenticity is thus understood as a contract between the visitor and the institution. Consequently, the use of reproduction techniques—from highly faithful facsimiles to improvised replicas that make no claim to credibility—remains restrained, yet nonetheless constant across institutions and over time.
The case of the streets of Vieux Lyon, which underwent an initial phase of pedestrianization in 1977–1978, provides a basis for examining the interaction between street infrastructure as heritage and the built environment as heritage, at a time when street infrastructure had not yet been recognized as a category amenable to heritage designation. Under the pressure of tourism, and while the primary objective remained the enhancement of the built fabric, the redevelopment of the central streets of Vieux Lyon was far from self-evident, including for residents’ and shopkeepers’ associations, which did not appropriate this instrument of heritage valorization. Ultimately, the intervention consisted in reconstructing a “period” street, which proves to be a pastiche of a medieval street.From the perspective of heritage-making processes, this operation reveals selective strategies: the redesigned street is subordinated to the built fabric, notably by freeing buildings from sidewalks that could undermine their architectural unity, and by discreetly indicating—through paving—the entrances to notable buildings and the principal traboules. The complete repaving of Rue Saint-Jean mobilized skills and materials characteristic of Lyonnais practices that were then in decline, yet these were in no way foregrounded in contemporary discourse. Street infrastructure as heritage was thus rendered invisible, and the distinctive features of Lyonnais paving gradually disappeared over the course of the 1980s, giving way to standardized paving and surfacing found in many other urban contexts.
Street trees have once again become a central concern in Aix-en-Provence (Bouches-du-Rhône) at the beginning of the 21st century. The history of this local heritage has long been marked by debates and controversies, many of which have centred on the Cours Mirabeau. In particular, the replacement of its double row of elm trees with plane trees sparked heated discussions throughout the nineteenth century. More recently, in the 2010s, the felling of these same plane trees, which had been infected by canker stain disease, triggered significant civic mobilisation and prompted the municipal authorities to reconsider both their tree management practices and their communication strategies. The adoption of a Tree Charter in 2017, followed by the establishment of a Tree Heritage Management Unit to oversee its implementation, laid the foundations for a renewed relationship with this urban vegetation.With a rich tree heritage, much of it dating from before the twentieth century, yet now facing a major need for renewal in the context of climate change, Aix-en-Provence provides a revealing case study of the renewed prominence of street trees in the concerns of many French municipalities and of the complexity inherent in their contemporary governance. The local dynamics of the heritage-making process surrounding street trees raise broader questions about the evolution of the frameworks, values, and practices guiding those responsible for their management, and, more specifically, about the extent to which these are undergoing a process of ecological transition.
