Dunkirk: A Port, Towns, a Coastline. A Century of Urban Adventure 1900-2000

An urban community of 250,000 inhabitants at the forefront of France, Dunkirk entered the 20^th century with the desire to succeed in its urban, territorial and architectural transformation. It all began in 1900 with the construction by Louis-Marie Cordonnier of a town hall which expressed the dual desire to reconnect with a mythical Flemish past and to free oneself from the tutelage of an omnipresent State. Then there were the first urban plans, the dismantling of the fortification, World War II and the reconstruction, until the Neptune project which sealed its reconciliation with the ocean. Dunkirk is Malo-les-Bains with its wooden houses, the powerful oil installations and the workers' towns to the west, the Art Nouveau and Art Deco seaside architecture to the east. And, facing the ocean, the port with its docks and warehouses, masterpieces of industrial architecture. And Dunkirk is the piers, the lighthouses, the fires and sublime perspectives. A fresco of urban adventures, this book evokes a heritage of nostalgia, inventions and passions.

24.5 x 27.5 cm

216 pages

340 black and white and color illustrations

ISBN: 978-2-9092-8349-4

Text in French only