Bertrand Lemoine, architect engineer, doctor in history, former secretary-general of the International workshop of the Greater Paris.
Megapolis on a “grand” scale: Paris-Moscow
Paris and Moscow are the two big megalopolises of continental Europe. Beyond their similarities (history, national importance, demographic weight, riverside position, radio-concentric structure, rapid 20th-century expansion, centre-periphery contrast, etc.), they have recently relied on a similar method to search for the keys of their future development: a broad consultation of multidisciplinary teams of architects and town planners.
The Greater Paris seeks to move towards a strategy of reasoned densification of the existing city through the development of public transport infrastructure, the focus on around 1,500 urban and economic development sites, the construction of additional housing and the preservation of peripheral natural or agricultural areas. Corresponding urban strategies, in part inspired by the consultation, can pave the way for a truly sustainable urbanism – that of the 21st century – if implemented, and a more polycentric structure of the megalopolis.
Moscow has formulated a project for a very significant extension of its territory in the southwestern outskirts of the city, with – at least as initially planned – the transfer of a significant part of the institutions of national and local governance. However, the consultation revealed that the existing city still held potential, especially in its brownfields, and showed the need for a reconfiguration of the metropolitan space as an alternative to expansionism.
These two consultations, extended over time in the case of the Greater Paris, thus acted as revealers of the metropolitan potential, forces for forward-looking proposals and catalysts for moving institutions in the megalopolis. They have led to a different perspective on reality, to change the modalities of public action and to answer the following questions: what is the real perimeter of the megalopolis? Why and how to build there? Where will it change? How to change the megalopolis? What are the urban forms and practices of tomorrow?
Detail of the IAU projects map.