Inshore Patrol Vessel HMS Exploit at Dartmouth

Journée de sensibilisation de masse sur la prévention de l’exploitation et de l’abus sexuels. 5eme Ardt. Bangui, le 30 août 2017

 

Photo UN/ Dany Balepe

 

The exploitation rights for this text are the property of the Vienna Tourist Board. This text may be reprinted free of charge until further notice, even partially and in edited form. Forward sample copy to: Vienna Tourist Board, Media Management, Invalidenstraße 6, 1030 Vienna; media.rel@wien.info. All information in this text without guarantee.

Author: Andreas Nierhaus, Curator of Architecture/Wien Museum

Last updated January 2014

Architecture in Vienna

Vienna's 2,000-year history is present in a unique density in the cityscape. The layout of the center dates back to the Roman city and medieval road network. Romanesque and Gothic churches characterize the streets and squares as well as palaces and mansions of the baroque city of residence. The ring road is an expression of the modern city of the 19th century, in the 20th century extensive housing developments set accents in the outer districts. Currently, large-scale urban development measures are implemented; distinctive buildings of international star architects complement the silhouette of the city.

Due to its function as residence of the emperor and European power center, Vienna for centuries stood in the focus of international attention, but it was well aware of that too. As a result, developed an outstanding building culture, and still today on a worldwide scale only a few cities can come up with a comparable density of high-quality architecture. For several years now, Vienna has increased its efforts to connect with its historical highlights and is drawing attention to itself with some spectacular new buildings. The fastest growing city in the German-speaking world today most of all in residential construction is setting standards. Constants of the Viennese architecture are respect for existing structures, the palpability of historical layers and the dialogue between old and new.

Culmination of medieval architecture: the Stephansdom

The oldest architectural landmark of the city is St. Stephen's Cathedral. Under the rule of the Habsburgs, defining the face of the city from the late 13th century until 1918 in a decisive way, the cathedral was upgraded into the sacral monument of the political ambitions of the ruling house. The 1433 completed, 137 meters high southern tower, by the Viennese people affectionately named "Steffl", is a masterpiece of late Gothic architecture in Europe. For decades he was the tallest stone structure in Europe, until today he is the undisputed center of the city.

The baroque residence

Vienna's ascension into the ranks of the great European capitals began in Baroque. Among the most important architects are Johann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach and Johann Lucas von Hildebrandt. Outside the city walls arose a chain of summer palaces, including the garden Palais Schwarzenberg (1697-1704) as well as the Upper and Lower Belvedere of Prince Eugene of Savoy (1714-22). Among the most important city palaces are the Winter Palace of Prince Eugene (1695-1724, now a branch of the Belvedere) and the Palais Daun-Kinsky (auction house in Kinsky 1713-19). The emperor himself the Hofburg had complemented by buildings such as the Imperial Library (1722-26) and the Winter Riding School (1729-34). More important, however, for the Habsburgs was the foundation of churches and monasteries. Thus arose before the city walls Fischer von Erlach's Karlskirche (1714-39), which with its formal and thematic complex show façade belongs to the major works of European Baroque. In colored interior rooms like that of St. Peter's Church (1701-22), the contemporary efforts for the synthesis of architecture, painting and sculpture becomes visible.

Upgrading into metropolis: the ring road time (Ringstraßenzeit)

Since the Baroque, reflections on extension of the hopelessly overcrowed city were made, but only Emperor Franz Joseph ordered in 1857 the demolition of the fortifications and the connection of the inner city with the suburbs. 1865, the Ring Road was opened. It is as the most important boulevard of Europe an architectural and in terms of urban development achievement of the highest rank. The original building structure is almost completely preserved and thus conveys the authentic image of a metropolis of the 19th century. The public representational buildings speak, reflecting accurately the historicism, by their style: The Greek Antique forms of Theophil Hansen's Parliament (1871-83) stood for democracy, the Renaissance of the by Heinrich Ferstel built University (1873-84) for the flourishing of humanism, the Gothic of the Town Hall (1872-83) by Friedrich Schmidt for the medieval civic pride.

Dominating remained the buildings of the imperial family: Eduard van der Nüll's and August Sicardsburg's Opera House (1863-69), Gottfried Semper's and Carl Hasenauer's Burgtheater (1874-88), their Museum of Art History and Museum of Natural History (1871-91) and the Neue (New) Hofburg (1881-1918 ). At the same time the ring road was the preferred residential area of mostly Jewish haute bourgeoisie. With luxurious palaces the families Ephrussi, Epstein or Todesco made it clear that they had taken over the cultural leadership role in Viennese society. In the framework of the World Exhibition of 1873, the new Vienna presented itself an international audience. At the ring road many hotels were opened, among them the Hotel Imperial and today's Palais Hansen Kempinski.

Laboratory of modernity: Vienna around 1900

Otto Wagner's Postal Savings Bank (1903-06) was one of the last buildings in the Ring road area Otto Wagner's Postal Savings Bank (1903-06), which with it façade, liberated of ornament, and only decorated with "functional" aluminum buttons and the glass banking hall now is one of the icons of modern architecture. Like no other stood Otto Wagner for the dawn into the 20th century: His Metropolitan Railway buildings made ​​the public transport of the city a topic of architecture, the church of the Psychiatric hospital at Steinhofgründe (1904-07) is considered the first modern church.

With his consistent focus on the function of a building ("Something impractical can not be beautiful"), Wagner marked a whole generation of architects and made Vienna the laboratory of modernity: in addition to Joseph Maria Olbrich, the builder of the Secession (1897-98) and Josef Hoffmann, the architect of the at the western outskirts located Purkersdorf Sanatorium (1904) and founder of the Vienna Workshop (Wiener Werkstätte, 1903) is mainly to mention Adolf Loos, with the Loos House at the square Michaelerplatz (1909-11) making architectural history. The extravagant marble cladding of the business zone stands in maximal contrast, derived from the building function, to the unadorned facade above, whereby its "nudity" became even more obvious - a provocation, as well as his culture-critical texts ("Ornament and Crime"), with which he had greatest impact on the architecture of the 20th century. Public contracts Loos remained denied. His major works therefore include villas, apartment facilities and premises as the still in original state preserved Tailor salon Knize at Graben (1910-13) and the restored Loos Bar (1908-09) near the Kärntner Straße (passageway Kärntner Durchgang).

Between the Wars: International Modern Age and social housing

After the collapse of the monarchy in 1918, Vienna became capital of the newly formed small country of Austria. In the heart of the city, the architects Theiss & Jaksch built 1931-32 the first skyscraper in Vienna as an exclusive residential address (Herrengasse - alley 6-8). To combat the housing shortage for the general population, the social democratic city government in a globally unique building program within a few years 60,000 apartments in hundreds of apartment buildings throughout the city area had built, including the famous Karl Marx-Hof by Karl Ehn (1925-30). An alternative to the multi-storey buildings with the 1932 opened International Werkbundsiedlung was presented, which was attended by 31 architects from Austria, Germany, France, Holland and the USA and showed models for affordable housing in greenfield areas. With buildings of Adolf Loos, André Lurçat, Richard Neutra, Gerrit Rietveld, the Werkbundsiedlung, which currently is being restored at great expense, is one of the most important documents of modern architecture in Austria.

Modernism was also expressed in significant Villa buildings: The House Beer (1929-31) by Josef Frank exemplifies the refined Wiener living culture of the interwar period, while the house Stonborough-Wittgenstein (1926-28, today Bulgarian Cultural Institute), built by the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein together with the architect Paul Engelmann for his sister Margarete, by its aesthetic radicalism and mathematical rigor represents a special case within contemporary architecture.

Expulsion, war and reconstruction

After the "Anschluss (Annexation)" to the German Reich in 1938, numerous Jewish builders, architects (female and male ones), who had been largely responsible for the high level of Viennese architecture, have been expelled from Austria. During the Nazi era, Vienna remained largely unaffected by structural transformations, apart from the six flak towers built for air defense of Friedrich Tamms (1942-45), made ​​of solid reinforced concrete which today are present as memorials in the cityscape.

The years after the end of World War II were characterized by the reconstruction of the by bombs heavily damaged city. The architecture of those times was marked by aesthetic pragmatism, but also by the attempt to connect with the period before 1938 and pick up on current international trends. Among the most important buildings of the 1950s are Roland Rainer's City Hall (1952-58), the by Oswald Haerdtl erected Wien Museum at Karlsplatz (1954-59) and the 21er Haus of Karl Schwanzer (1958-62).

The youngsters come

Since the 1960s, a young generation was looking for alternatives to the moderate modernism of the reconstruction years. With visionary designs, conceptual, experimental and above all temporary architectures, interventions and installations, Raimund Abraham, Günther Domenig, Eilfried Huth, Hans Hollein, Walter Pichler and the groups Coop Himmelb(l)au, Haus-Rucker-Co and Missing Link rapidly got international attention. Although for the time being it was more designed than built, was the influence on the postmodern and deconstructivist trends of the 1970s and 1980s also outside Austria great. Hollein's futuristic "Retti" candle shop at Charcoal Market/Kohlmarkt (1964-65) and Domenig's biomorphic building of the Central Savings Bank in Favoriten (10th district of Vienna - 1975-79) are among the earliest examples, later Hollein's Haas-Haus (1985-90), the loft conversion Falkestraße (1987/88) by Coop Himmelb(l)au or Domenig's T Center (2002-04) were added. Especially Domenig, Hollein, Coop Himmelb(l)au and the architects Ortner & Ortner (ancient members of Haus-Rucker-Co) ​​by orders from abroad the new Austrian and Viennese architecture made a fixed international concept.

MuseumQuarter and Gasometer

Since the 1980s, the focus of building in Vienna lies on the compaction of the historic urban fabric that now as urban habitat of high quality no longer is put in question. Among the internationally best known projects is the by Ortner & Ortner planned MuseumsQuartier in the former imperial stables (competition 1987, 1998-2001), which with institutions such as the MUMOK - Museum of Modern Art Foundation Ludwig, the Leopold Museum, the Kunsthalle Wien, the Architecture Center Vienna and the Zoom Children's Museum on a wordwide scale is under the largest cultural complexes. After controversies in the planning phase, here an architectural compromise between old and new has been achieved at the end, whose success as an urban stage with four million visitors (2012) is overwhelming.

The dialogue between old and new, which has to stand on the agenda of building culture of a city that is so strongly influenced by history, also features the reconstruction of the Gasometer in Simmering by Coop Himmelb(l)au, Wilhelm Holzbauer, Jean Nouvel and Manfred Wehdorn (1999-2001). Here was not only created new housing, but also a historical industrial monument reinterpreted into a signal in the urban development area.

New Neighborhood

In recent years, the major railway stations and their surroundings moved into the focus of planning. Here not only necessary infrastructural measures were taken, but at the same time opened up spacious inner-city residential areas and business districts. Among the prestigious projects are included the construction of the new Vienna Central Station, started in 2010 with the surrounding office towers of the Quartier Belvedere and the residential and school buildings of the Midsummer quarter (Sonnwendviertel). Europe's largest wooden tower invites here for a spectacular view to the construction site and the entire city. On the site of the former North Station are currently being built 10,000 homes and 20,000 jobs, on that of the Aspangbahn station is being built at Europe's greatest Passive House settlement "Euro Gate", the area of ​​the North Western Railway Station is expected to be developed from 2020 for living and working. The largest currently under construction residential project but can be found in the north-eastern outskirts, where in Seaside Town Aspern till 2028 living and working space for 40,000 people will be created.

In one of the "green lungs" of Vienna, the Prater, 2013, the WU campus was opened for the largest University of Economics of Europe. Around the central square spectacular buildings of an international architect team from Great Britain, Japan, Spain and Austria are gathered that seem to lead a sometimes very loud conversation about the status quo of contemporary architecture (Hitoshi Abe, BUSarchitektur, Peter Cook, Zaha Hadid, NO MAD Arquitectos, Carme Pinós).

Flying high

International is also the number of architects who have inscribed themselves in the last few years with high-rise buildings in the skyline of Vienna and make St. Stephen's a not always unproblematic competition. Visible from afar is Massimiliano Fuksas' 138 and 127 meters high elegant Twin Tower at Wienerberg (1999-2001). The monolithic, 75-meter-high tower of the Hotel Sofitel at the Danube Canal by Jean Nouvel (2007-10), on the other hand, reacts to the particular urban situation and stages in its top floor new perspectives to the historical center on the other side.

Also at the water stands Dominique Perrault's DC Tower (2010-13) in the Danube City - those high-rise city, in which since the start of construction in 1996, the expansion of the city north of the Danube is condensed symbolically. Even in this environment, the slim and at the same time striking vertically folded tower of Perrault is beyond all known dimensions; from its Sky Bar, from spring 2014 on you are able to enjoy the highest view of Vienna. With 250 meters, the tower is the tallest building of Austria and almost twice as high as the St. Stephen's Cathedral. Vienna, thus, has acquired a new architectural landmark which cannot be overlooked - whether it also has the potential to become a landmark of the new Vienna, only time will tell. The architectural history of Vienna, where European history is presence and new buildings enter into an exciting and not always conflict-free dialogue with a great and outstanding architectural heritage, in any case has yet to offer exciting chapters.

Info: The folder "Architecture: From Art Nouveau to the Presence" is available at the Vienna Tourist Board and can be downloaded on www.wien.info/media/files/guide-architecture-in-wien.pdf.

The exploitation rights for this text are the property of the Vienna Tourist Board. This text may be reprinted free of charge until further notice, even partially and in edited form. Forward sample copy to: Vienna Tourist Board, Media Management, Invalidenstraße 6, 1030 Vienna; media.rel@wien.info. All information in this text without guarantee.

Author: Andreas Nierhaus, Curator of Architecture/Wien Museum

Last updated January 2014

Architecture in Vienna

Vienna's 2,000-year history is present in a unique density in the cityscape. The layout of the center dates back to the Roman city and medieval road network. Romanesque and Gothic churches characterize the streets and squares as well as palaces and mansions of the baroque city of residence. The ring road is an expression of the modern city of the 19th century, in the 20th century extensive housing developments set accents in the outer districts. Currently, large-scale urban development measures are implemented; distinctive buildings of international star architects complement the silhouette of the city.

Due to its function as residence of the emperor and European power center, Vienna for centuries stood in the focus of international attention, but it was well aware of that too. As a result, developed an outstanding building culture, and still today on a worldwide scale only a few cities can come up with a comparable density of high-quality architecture. For several years now, Vienna has increased its efforts to connect with its historical highlights and is drawing attention to itself with some spectacular new buildings. The fastest growing city in the German-speaking world today most of all in residential construction is setting standards. Constants of the Viennese architecture are respect for existing structures, the palpability of historical layers and the dialogue between old and new.

Culmination of medieval architecture: the Stephansdom

The oldest architectural landmark of the city is St. Stephen's Cathedral. Under the rule of the Habsburgs, defining the face of the city from the late 13th century until 1918 in a decisive way, the cathedral was upgraded into the sacral monument of the political ambitions of the ruling house. The 1433 completed, 137 meters high southern tower, by the Viennese people affectionately named "Steffl", is a masterpiece of late Gothic architecture in Europe. For decades he was the tallest stone structure in Europe, until today he is the undisputed center of the city.

The baroque residence

Vienna's ascension into the ranks of the great European capitals began in Baroque. Among the most important architects are Johann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach and Johann Lucas von Hildebrandt. Outside the city walls arose a chain of summer palaces, including the garden Palais Schwarzenberg (1697-1704) as well as the Upper and Lower Belvedere of Prince Eugene of Savoy (1714-22). Among the most important city palaces are the Winter Palace of Prince Eugene (1695-1724, now a branch of the Belvedere) and the Palais Daun-Kinsky (auction house in Kinsky 1713-19). The emperor himself the Hofburg had complemented by buildings such as the Imperial Library (1722-26) and the Winter Riding School (1729-34). More important, however, for the Habsburgs was the foundation of churches and monasteries. Thus arose before the city walls Fischer von Erlach's Karlskirche (1714-39), which with its formal and thematic complex show façade belongs to the major works of European Baroque. In colored interior rooms like that of St. Peter's Church (1701-22), the contemporary efforts for the synthesis of architecture, painting and sculpture becomes visible.

Upgrading into metropolis: the ring road time (Ringstraßenzeit)

Since the Baroque, reflections on extension of the hopelessly overcrowed city were made, but only Emperor Franz Joseph ordered in 1857 the demolition of the fortifications and the connection of the inner city with the suburbs. 1865, the Ring Road was opened. It is as the most important boulevard of Europe an architectural and in terms of urban development achievement of the highest rank. The original building structure is almost completely preserved and thus conveys the authentic image of a metropolis of the 19th century. The public representational buildings speak, reflecting accurately the historicism, by their style: The Greek Antique forms of Theophil Hansen's Parliament (1871-83) stood for democracy, the Renaissance of the by Heinrich Ferstel built University (1873-84) for the flourishing of humanism, the Gothic of the Town Hall (1872-83) by Friedrich Schmidt for the medieval civic pride.

Dominating remained the buildings of the imperial family: Eduard van der Nüll's and August Sicardsburg's Opera House (1863-69), Gottfried Semper's and Carl Hasenauer's Burgtheater (1874-88), their Museum of Art History and Museum of Natural History (1871-91) and the Neue (New) Hofburg (1881-1918 ). At the same time the ring road was the preferred residential area of mostly Jewish haute bourgeoisie. With luxurious palaces the families Ephrussi, Epstein or Todesco made it clear that they had taken over the cultural leadership role in Viennese society. In the framework of the World Exhibition of 1873, the new Vienna presented itself an international audience. At the ring road many hotels were opened, among them the Hotel Imperial and today's Palais Hansen Kempinski.

Laboratory of modernity: Vienna around 1900

Otto Wagner's Postal Savings Bank (1903-06) was one of the last buildings in the Ring road area Otto Wagner's Postal Savings Bank (1903-06), which with it façade, liberated of ornament, and only decorated with "functional" aluminum buttons and the glass banking hall now is one of the icons of modern architecture. Like no other stood Otto Wagner for the dawn into the 20th century: His Metropolitan Railway buildings made ​​the public transport of the city a topic of architecture, the church of the Psychiatric hospital at Steinhofgründe (1904-07) is considered the first modern church.

With his consistent focus on the function of a building ("Something impractical can not be beautiful"), Wagner marked a whole generation of architects and made Vienna the laboratory of modernity: in addition to Joseph Maria Olbrich, the builder of the Secession (1897-98) and Josef Hoffmann, the architect of the at the western outskirts located Purkersdorf Sanatorium (1904) and founder of the Vienna Workshop (Wiener Werkstätte, 1903) is mainly to mention Adolf Loos, with the Loos House at the square Michaelerplatz (1909-11) making architectural history. The extravagant marble cladding of the business zone stands in maximal contrast, derived from the building function, to the unadorned facade above, whereby its "nudity" became even more obvious - a provocation, as well as his culture-critical texts ("Ornament and Crime"), with which he had greatest impact on the architecture of the 20th century. Public contracts Loos remained denied. His major works therefore include villas, apartment facilities and premises as the still in original state preserved Tailor salon Knize at Graben (1910-13) and the restored Loos Bar (1908-09) near the Kärntner Straße (passageway Kärntner Durchgang).

Between the Wars: International Modern Age and social housing

After the collapse of the monarchy in 1918, Vienna became capital of the newly formed small country of Austria. In the heart of the city, the architects Theiss & Jaksch built 1931-32 the first skyscraper in Vienna as an exclusive residential address (Herrengasse - alley 6-8). To combat the housing shortage for the general population, the social democratic city government in a globally unique building program within a few years 60,000 apartments in hundreds of apartment buildings throughout the city area had built, including the famous Karl Marx-Hof by Karl Ehn (1925-30). An alternative to the multi-storey buildings with the 1932 opened International Werkbundsiedlung was presented, which was attended by 31 architects from Austria, Germany, France, Holland and the USA and showed models for affordable housing in greenfield areas. With buildings of Adolf Loos, André Lurçat, Richard Neutra, Gerrit Rietveld, the Werkbundsiedlung, which currently is being restored at great expense, is one of the most important documents of modern architecture in Austria.

Modernism was also expressed in significant Villa buildings: The House Beer (1929-31) by Josef Frank exemplifies the refined Wiener living culture of the interwar period, while the house Stonborough-Wittgenstein (1926-28, today Bulgarian Cultural Institute), built by the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein together with the architect Paul Engelmann for his sister Margarete, by its aesthetic radicalism and mathematical rigor represents a special case within contemporary architecture.

Expulsion, war and reconstruction

After the "Anschluss (Annexation)" to the German Reich in 1938, numerous Jewish builders, architects (female and male ones), who had been largely responsible for the high level of Viennese architecture, have been expelled from Austria. During the Nazi era, Vienna remained largely unaffected by structural transformations, apart from the six flak towers built for air defense of Friedrich Tamms (1942-45), made ​​of solid reinforced concrete which today are present as memorials in the cityscape.

The years after the end of World War II were characterized by the reconstruction of the by bombs heavily damaged city. The architecture of those times was marked by aesthetic pragmatism, but also by the attempt to connect with the period before 1938 and pick up on current international trends. Among the most important buildings of the 1950s are Roland Rainer's City Hall (1952-58), the by Oswald Haerdtl erected Wien Museum at Karlsplatz (1954-59) and the 21er Haus of Karl Schwanzer (1958-62).

The youngsters come

Since the 1960s, a young generation was looking for alternatives to the moderate modernism of the reconstruction years. With visionary designs, conceptual, experimental and above all temporary architectures, interventions and installations, Raimund Abraham, Günther Domenig, Eilfried Huth, Hans Hollein, Walter Pichler and the groups Coop Himmelb(l)au, Haus-Rucker-Co and Missing Link rapidly got international attention. Although for the time being it was more designed than built, was the influence on the postmodern and deconstructivist trends of the 1970s and 1980s also outside Austria great. Hollein's futuristic "Retti" candle shop at Charcoal Market/Kohlmarkt (1964-65) and Domenig's biomorphic building of the Central Savings Bank in Favoriten (10th district of Vienna - 1975-79) are among the earliest examples, later Hollein's Haas-Haus (1985-90), the loft conversion Falkestraße (1987/88) by Coop Himmelb(l)au or Domenig's T Center (2002-04) were added. Especially Domenig, Hollein, Coop Himmelb(l)au and the architects Ortner & Ortner (ancient members of Haus-Rucker-Co) ​​by orders from abroad the new Austrian and Viennese architecture made a fixed international concept.

MuseumQuarter and Gasometer

Since the 1980s, the focus of building in Vienna lies on the compaction of the historic urban fabric that now as urban habitat of high quality no longer is put in question. Among the internationally best known projects is the by Ortner & Ortner planned MuseumsQuartier in the former imperial stables (competition 1987, 1998-2001), which with institutions such as the MUMOK - Museum of Modern Art Foundation Ludwig, the Leopold Museum, the Kunsthalle Wien, the Architecture Center Vienna and the Zoom Children's Museum on a wordwide scale is under the largest cultural complexes. After controversies in the planning phase, here an architectural compromise between old and new has been achieved at the end, whose success as an urban stage with four million visitors (2012) is overwhelming.

The dialogue between old and new, which has to stand on the agenda of building culture of a city that is so strongly influenced by history, also features the reconstruction of the Gasometer in Simmering by Coop Himmelb(l)au, Wilhelm Holzbauer, Jean Nouvel and Manfred Wehdorn (1999-2001). Here was not only created new housing, but also a historical industrial monument reinterpreted into a signal in the urban development area.

New Neighborhood

In recent years, the major railway stations and their surroundings moved into the focus of planning. Here not only necessary infrastructural measures were taken, but at the same time opened up spacious inner-city residential areas and business districts. Among the prestigious projects are included the construction of the new Vienna Central Station, started in 2010 with the surrounding office towers of the Quartier Belvedere and the residential and school buildings of the Midsummer quarter (Sonnwendviertel). Europe's largest wooden tower invites here for a spectacular view to the construction site and the entire city. On the site of the former North Station are currently being built 10,000 homes and 20,000 jobs, on that of the Aspangbahn station is being built at Europe's greatest Passive House settlement "Euro Gate", the area of ​​the North Western Railway Station is expected to be developed from 2020 for living and working. The largest currently under construction residential project but can be found in the north-eastern outskirts, where in Seaside Town Aspern till 2028 living and working space for 40,000 people will be created.

In one of the "green lungs" of Vienna, the Prater, 2013, the WU campus was opened for the largest University of Economics of Europe. Around the central square spectacular buildings of an international architect team from Great Britain, Japan, Spain and Austria are gathered that seem to lead a sometimes very loud conversation about the status quo of contemporary architecture (Hitoshi Abe, BUSarchitektur, Peter Cook, Zaha Hadid, NO MAD Arquitectos, Carme Pinós).

Flying high

International is also the number of architects who have inscribed themselves in the last few years with high-rise buildings in the skyline of Vienna and make St. Stephen's a not always unproblematic competition. Visible from afar is Massimiliano Fuksas' 138 and 127 meters high elegant Twin Tower at Wienerberg (1999-2001). The monolithic, 75-meter-high tower of the Hotel Sofitel at the Danube Canal by Jean Nouvel (2007-10), on the other hand, reacts to the particular urban situation and stages in its top floor new perspectives to the historical center on the other side.

Also at the water stands Dominique Perrault's DC Tower (2010-13) in the Danube City - those high-rise city, in which since the start of construction in 1996, the expansion of the city north of the Danube is condensed symbolically. Even in this environment, the slim and at the same time striking vertically folded tower of Perrault is beyond all known dimensions; from its Sky Bar, from spring 2014 on you are able to enjoy the highest view of Vienna. With 250 meters, the tower is the tallest building of Austria and almost twice as high as the St. Stephen's Cathedral. Vienna, thus, has acquired a new architectural landmark which cannot be overlooked - whether it also has the potential to become a landmark of the new Vienna, only time will tell. The architectural history of Vienna, where European history is presence and new buildings enter into an exciting and not always conflict-free dialogue with a great and outstanding architectural heritage, in any case has yet to offer exciting chapters.

Info: The folder "Architecture: From Art Nouveau to the Presence" is available at the Vienna Tourist Board and can be downloaded on www.wien.info/media/files/guide-architecture-in-wien.pdf.

Exploitant : Cars Perrier

Réseau : SQYBUS

Ligne : 418

Lieu : Jean Lurçat (Trappes, F-78)

Even when I bought their 'throw away' hankies & socks I knew, in both my heart & my head, that the only way they could sell so cheaply was by exploiting slave labour.

Now, after learning that scattered throughout the rubble, blood, bodies, maimed, still trapped & still suffering, ruthlessly exploited human beings --- were this 'booming business' brand's labels -- I swear -- NEVER AGAIN!

www.channel4.com/news/bangladesh-building-collapse-what-p...

 

www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-22299929

 

www.guardian.co.uk/business/associatedbritishfoods

 

Lego look alike from China, appropriately named Exploiter. This one is based on the Lego Technic 8283 alternate design.

Our house on Exploits Islands in Notre Dame Bay. No running water or electricity. No phones, either. Definitely a great place to escape from the stresses of the modern world.

Véhicule de service et Proxitan - Arrêt : Pirmil

Exploitant : SEMITAN

Réseau TAN - Nantes

IT WAS A FUN APRIL 1ST at the SAINT STUPID DAY'S PARADE in SAN FRANCISCO. There is no other event in the world where folks gather to HAVE FUN and poke fun at the embedded horrid capitalist exploitation of the world.

 

Everyone came in costume...ADDA came as a REPUBLICAN BURNING IN HELL (which we all know in our deepest of hearts is where all REPUBLICANS and RIGHT WING A-0's will end up) ! i shouted MERRY CHRISTMAS to all the business people in the Financial District who stopped and stared in utter confusion.

 

Everyone gathered at the EMBARCADERO then proceeded to the WORKERS STATUE. There in honor of CLOWNS WITHOUT BOARDERS they put a 'red clown nose' on one of the statues! ADDA DADA got the crowd cheering 'HERO' for the guy who put the nose on the statue.

 

then to the PACIFIC STOCK EXCHANGE for the wonderful spoof...SOCK EXCHANGE...everyone exchanged socks & then tossed them in the air! One of ADDA DADA's Christmas SANTAs socks were found and declared a SAINT STUPID HOLY RELIC! (you so know i loved that)

  

Onward we went to the BANKER's HEART...the big, black marble rock in front of BANK OF AMERICA...where everyone tossed their loose pennies at the banker's black greedy heart! (This is just like the muslims in Mecca who toss rocks at the black stone which represents the devil..)

 

There was tons of good fun, great signs, good vibes, political statements, and incredible costumes

 

Good luck that the videos go on JIMMY KIMMEL LIVE tonight

Afin d'assumer les dispositions de la convention de 1881 créant la ligne d'Australie et prévoyant un départ de Marseille toutes les 4 semaines, avec une vitesse d'exploitation de 13 nœuds et une réserve de deux nœuds aux essais, 7 paquebots furent construits à La Ciotat entre 1881 et 1884. NATAL – MELBOURNE – CALÉDONIEN – SYDNEY – SALAZIE – YARRA – OCÉANIEN. La coque à la même dimension que celle du SAGHALIEN (plans de Vésigné lancé le 25 juillet 1880 pour la ligne de Chine) mais la machine a 500cv de plus. Ils sont au départ, gréés en 3 mâts-barque, transformés ultérieurement en 3 mâts-goélette, ils perdront vergues et guis avant la guerre de 14 à laquelle, sauf le SALAZIE échoué en 1912, ils participeront tous activement. CALÉDONIEN et YARRA seront perdus par fait de guerre.

 

NATAL 1er de la série

1881 le 3 Juillet Lancé par Mr Vésigné à La Ciotat

Paquebots à hélice et coque en fer, avec deux cheminées, gréé en 3 mâts-barque. Avec un avant droit et un long gaillard, roof arrière entre les 2èmes et 3ème mâts.

 

CARACTÉRISTIQUES :

Longueur : 126,15 m entre pp 130,75m ht

Largeur : 12,06 m

Jauge brute : 4.250 tjb

Port en Lourd : 1.565 tonnes

Déplacement : 6.150 tonnes pour 6,30 m de tirant d'eau.

1885 Installation à La Ciotat d'un salon de musique.

1886 Installation d'un éclairage électrique à incandescence à La Ciotat.

 

PROPULSION :

Une machine à vapeur compound à 3 cylindres. HPØ 1,10m - MP Ø 1.53m- HP Ø 1.53m - Course 1.10m

8 chaudières cylindriques timbrées à 6 kg/cm²

Puissance : 3400 cv

Vitesse : 15.6 nœuds aux essais.

1895 – Machine triple expansion de 400 cv avec 16 nœuds atteints aux essais.

 

ÉQUIPAGE :

État-major : 11 officiers

Personnel : 185 hommes marins et ADSG

 

PASSAGERS :

1ères Classes 90 passagers

Sdes Classes 44 passagers

3èmes Classes 75 passagers

 

LIGNES DESSERVIES :

1882 le 5 février départ du premier des deux premiers voyages se feront sur la ligne d'Extrême-Orient.

1882 le 23 novembre part de Marseille pour inaugurer la nouvelle ligne Suez, Mahé des Seychelles, La réunion, Maurice, Australie, Nouvelle Calédonie.

1884 – 1897 Passe sur la ligne de Chine. A cette occasion, il sera repeint en blanc. Ce jusqu'en 1905

1897 - 1898 Ligne de Méditerranée Orientale.

1898 – 1914 Ligne de l'Océan Indien, Madagascar.

 

ÉVÉNEMENTS :

1889 le 31 octobre. Durant la traversée Hong-Kong - Saïgon. Au sud des îles Paracelse, il rencontre un typhon. Le Commandant Such manœuvre, mais le 1er novembre à 06 h du matin il tombe en travers à la suite de la rupture de sa drosse de gouvernail et puis de celle de rechange. Pendant 20 mn le navire sera en perdition. Le salon et les cabines sont très endommagés, les claires voies enfoncées. Le Commandant et plusieurs membres de l'équipage sont blessés. Mais on réussit à réparer la drosse, le commissaire obtient l'aide des passagers pour concourir au sauvetage du navire. Plus tard, le cambusier A. Grazielly représentera cet instant en réalisant un Ex-voto qui se trouve dans la chapelle Notre Dame du Bon Port à Antibes.

1914 – Réquisitionné, participe aux transports demandés par les autorités militaires.

1915 – Participe à l'opération des Dardanelles.

1916 – Avec le SINAÏ il participe au transport de 2370 prisonniers autrichiens entre Valona, Brindisi et Asinara.

1916 –. Avec NERA, MELBOURNE, DUMBÉA et AUSTRALIEN Transfert de 50.000 soldats de l'armée Serbe de Corfou à Salonique

1917 le 30 août à 20h45 partant de Marseille pour Madagascar avec du courrier et des passagers. Iil est en convoi tous feux éteints il est alors abordé par le cargo MALGACHE de la Compagnie Française de Madagascar affrété par la société Générale de Transport Maritime, venant d'Algérie et navigants feux allumés. Le Commandant Vallat et l'officier de quart Labeille sont à la passerelle. Le navire va couler en 10 minutes avec le commandant et 104 autres victimes dont 76 passagers sur les 503 présents à bord.

Son épave repose par 127 mètres de fond au large du phare de Planier dans la rade de Marseille. Elle vient d'être redécouverte et explorée par une équipe de plongeurs spécialisés dans les grandes profondeurs.

  

Tour Eiffel

Pour les articles homonymes, voir Tour Eiffel (homonymie).

Tour Eiffel

 

Géographie

Pays France

VilleParis

Quartier7e arrondissement

Coordonnées48° 51′ 30″ Nord 2° 17′ 40″ Est

Histoire

Ancien(s) nom(s)« Tour de 300 mètres »

Architecte(s)Stephen Sauvestre

Ingénieur(s)Gustave Eiffel & Cie

Construction1887 - 1889

2 ans, 2 mois et 5 jours

Usage(s)Tour d'observation et de télécommunication

Architecture

Style architecturalTour autoportante en fer puddlé

Protection Inscrit MH (1964)

Hauteur de l'antenne324 m

Hauteur du dernier étage279,11 m

Nombre d'étages4

Nombre d'ascenseurs4 (1/pilier)

Administration

Occupant(s)Société d'exploitation de la tour Eiffel (SETE)

Propriétaire(s)Mairie de Paris

Géolocalisation

 

La tour Eiffel est une tour de fer puddlé de 324 mètres de hauteur (avec antennes)o 1 située à Paris, à l’extrémité nord-ouest du parc du Champ-de-Mars en bordure de la Seine dans le 7e arrondissement. Construite par Gustave Eiffel et ses collaborateurs pour l’Exposition universelle de Paris de 1889, et initialement nommée « tour de 300 mètres », ce monument est devenu le symbole de la capitale française, et un site touristique de premier plan : il s’agit du second site culturel français payant le plus visité en 2011, avec 7,1 millions de visiteurs dont 75 % d'étrangers en 2011, la cathédrale Notre-Dame de Paris étant en tête des monuments à l'accès libre avec 13,6 millions de visiteurs estimés1 mais il reste le monument payant le plus visité au monde2,note 1. Elle a accueilli son 250 millionième visiteur en 2010.

D’une hauteur de 312 mètreso 1 à l’origine, la tour Eiffel est restée le monument le plus élevé du monde pendant 41 ans. Le second niveau du troisième étage, appelé parfois quatrième étage, situé à 279,11 m, est la plus haute plateforme d'observation accessible au public de l'Union européenne et la plus haute d'Europe, tant que celle de la Tour Ostankino à Moscou culminant à 337 m demeurera fermée au public, à la suite de l'incendie survenu en l'an 2000. La hauteur de la tour a été plusieurs fois augmentée par l’installation de nombreuses antennes. Utilisée dans le passé pour de nombreuses expériences scientifiques, elle sert aujourd’hui d’émetteur de programmes radiophoniques et télévisés.

 

Contestée par certains à l'origine, la tour Eiffel fut d'abord, à l'occasion de l'exposition universelle de 1889, la vitrine du savoir-faire technique français. Plébiscitée par le public dès sa présentation à l'exposition, elle a accueilli plus de 200 millions de visiteurs depuis son inaugurationo 2. Sa taille exceptionnelle et sa silhouette immédiatement reconnaissable en ont fait un emblème de Paris.

Imaginée par Maurice Koechlin et Émile Nouguier, respectivement chef du bureau des études et chef du bureau des méthodes d'Eiffel & Cie4, la tour Eiffel est conçue pour être le « clou de l'Exposition de 1889 se tenant à Paris. ». Elle salue également le centenaire de la Révolution française. Le premier plan est réalisé en juin 1884 et amélioré par Stephen Sauvestre, l’architecte en chef des projets de l'entreprise, qui lui apporte plus d'esthétique.

Le 1er mai 1886, le ministre du Commerce et de l'Industrie Édouard Lockroy, fervent défenseur du projet, signe un arrêté qui déclare ouvert « un concours en vue de l’Exposition universelle de 1889 »5. Gustave Eiffel remporte ce concours et une convention du 8 janvier 1887 fixe les modalités d'exploitation de l'édifice. La galerie Vittorio Emanuele II, au centre de Milan, fut une source d'inspiration, pour sa structure métallique.[réf. nécessaire]

Construite en deux ans, deux mois et cinq jours, de 1887 à 1889, par 250 ouvriers, elle est inaugurée, à l'occasion d'une fête de fin de chantier organisée par Gustave Eiffel, le 31 mars 1889o 3. Sa fréquentation s'érode rapidement ; la tour Eiffel ne connaîtra véritablement un succès massif et constant qu'à partir des années 1960, avec l'essor du tourisme international. Elle accueille maintenant plus de six millions de visiteurs chaque année.

Sa hauteur lui a permis de porter le titre de « plus haute structure du monde » jusqu'à la construction en 1930 du Chrysler Building à New York. Située sur le Champ-de-Mars, près de la Seine, dans le 7e arrondissement de Paris, elle est actuellement exploitée par la société d'exploitation de la tour Eiffel (SETE). Le site, sur lequel travaillent plus 500 personnes (dont plus de 250 directement employés par la SETE), est ouvert tous les jours de l'annéeo 1.

La tour Eiffel est inscrite aux monuments historiques depuis le 24 juin 19646 et est inscrite au patrimoine mondial de l'UNESCO depuis 1991, en compagnie des autres monuments parisiens.

 

ESPAGNOL ESPANOL

 

La Torre Eiffel (La Tour Eiffel, en francés), inicialmente nombrada torre de 330 metros (tour de 330 mètres), es una estructura de hierro pudelado diseñada por Maurice Koechlin y Émile Nouguier y construida por el ingeniero francés Gustave Eiffel y sus colaboradores para la Exposición universal de 1889 en París.1

Situada en el extremo del Campo de Marte a la orilla del río Sena, este monumento parisino, símbolo de Francia y su capital, es la estructura más alta de la ciudad y el monumento que cobra entrada más visitado del mundo, con 7,1 millones de turistas en 2011.2 Con una altura de 300 metros, prolongada más tarde con una antena a 325 metros, la Torre Eiffel fue la estructura más elevada del mundo durante 41 años.

Fue construida en dos años, dos meses y cinco días, y en su momento generó cierta controversia entre los artistas de la época, que la veían como un monstruo de hierro.3 Inicialmente utilizada para pruebas del ejército con antenas de comunicación,4 hoy sirve, además de atractivo turístico y como emisora de programas radiofónicos y televisivos.

 

La Torre Eiffel sobresale en París con sus 300 metros de altura.

 

Ubicación de la torre en la orilla sur del río Sena, en el extremo del Campo de Marte.

Inicialmente tema de controversia de algunos, la Torre Eiffel sirvió como presentación a la Exposición Universal de París de 1889, la cual acogió a más de 236 millones de visitantes desde su inauguración. Su tamaño excepcional y su silueta inmediatamente reconocible hicieron de la torre un emblema de París.

Concebida en la imaginación de Maurice Koechlin y Émile Nouguier, jefe de la oficina de estudios y jefe de la oficina de métodos, respectivamente, de la compañía "Eiffel & CO", fue pensada para ser el «clavo (centro de atención) de la exposición de 1889 que se celebraría en París», que además celebraría el centenario de la Revolución francesa. El primer plano de la torre fue realizado en junio de 1884 y mejorado por Stephen Sauvestre, el arquitecto principal de los proyectos de la empresa, quien le aportó más estética.

El 1 de mayo de 1886, el Ministro de Comercio e Industria, Édouard Lockroy, entusiasta partidario del proyecto, firmó un decreto que declaraba abierto «un apoyo para la Exposición Universal de 1889». Gustave Eiffel ganó este apoyo económico y un convenio el 8 de enero de 1887 que fijo las modalidades de construcción del edificio.

Construida en dos años, dos meses y cinco días (de 1887 a 1889) por 250 obreros, se inaugura oficialmente el 31 de marzo de 1889. Sufriendo una corrosión muy frecuente, la Torre Eiffel no conocerá verdaderamente un éxito masivo y constante hasta los años sesenta, con el desarrollo del turismo internacional. Ahora acoge a más de seis millones de visitantes cada año.

Sus 300 metros de altura le permitieron llevar el título de «la estructura más alta del mundo» hasta la construcción en 1930 del Edificio Chrysler, en Nueva York. Construida sobre el Campo de Marte cerca del río Sena, en el 7º distrito de París, actualmente es administrada por la "Sociedad para la administración de la torre Eiffel" (Société d'exploitation de la tour Eiffel, SETE). El lugar, que emplea a 500 personas (250 empleados directos del SETE y 250 de los distintos concesionarios instalados sobre el monumento), está abierto todos los días del año.

Exploitant : Cars Lacroix

Réseau : Valoise

Lieu : Gare d'Argenteuil (Argenteuil, F-95)

Lien TC Infos : tc-infos.fr/id/22896

île de Yell, Shetland

For sale on the local flea market.

 

Figures such as these exploited racial stereotypes prevalent in Europe, and were sometimes described as 'greedy nigger' money boxes. In order to justify the brutal enslavement of human beings, European society had to maintain racist ideologies. Europeans tried to demonstrate that Africans were savage and uncivilized so they could justify treating them inhumanely. Visual conventions developed that depicted African people crudely with exaggerated features.

Afin d'assumer les dispositions de la convention de 1881 créant la ligne d'Australie et prévoyant un départ de Marseille toutes les 4 semaines, avec une vitesse d'exploitation de 13 nœuds et une réserve de deux nœuds aux essais, 7 paquebots furent construits à La Ciotat entre 1881 et 1884. NATAL – MELBOURNE – CALÉDONIEN – SYDNEY – SALAZIE – YARRA – OCÉANIEN. La coque à la même dimension que celle du SAGHALIEN (plans de Vésigné lancé le 25 juillet 1880 pour la ligne de Chine) mais la machine a 500cv de plus. Ils sont au départ, gréés en 3 mâts-barque, transformés ultérieurement en 3 mâts-goélette, ils perdront vergues et guis avant la guerre de 14 à laquelle, sauf le SALAZIE échoué en 1912, ils participeront tous activement. CALÉDONIEN et YARRA seront perdus par fait de guerre.

 

NATAL 1er de la série

1881 le 3 Juillet Lancé par Mr Vésigné à La Ciotat

Paquebots à hélice et coque en fer, avec deux cheminées, gréé en 3 mâts-barque. Avec un avant droit et un long gaillard, roof arrière entre les 2èmes et 3ème mâts.

 

CARACTÉRISTIQUES :

Longueur : 126,15 m entre pp 130,75m ht

Largeur : 12,06 m

Jauge brute : 4.250 tjb

Port en Lourd : 1.565 tonnes

Déplacement : 6.150 tonnes pour 6,30 m de tirant d'eau.

1885 Installation à La Ciotat d'un salon de musique.

1886 Installation d'un éclairage électrique à incandescence à La Ciotat.

 

PROPULSION :

Une machine à vapeur compound à 3 cylindres. HPØ 1,10m - MP Ø 1.53m- HP Ø 1.53m - Course 1.10m

8 chaudières cylindriques timbrées à 6 kg/cm²

Puissance : 3400 cv

Vitesse : 15.6 nœuds aux essais.

1895 – Machine triple expansion de 400 cv avec 16 nœuds atteints aux essais.

 

ÉQUIPAGE :

État-major : 11 officiers

Personnel : 185 hommes marins et ADSG

 

PASSAGERS :

1ères Classes 90 passagers

Sdes Classes 44 passagers

3èmes Classes 75 passagers

 

LIGNES DESSERVIES :

1882 le 5 février départ du premier des deux premiers voyages se feront sur la ligne d'Extrême-Orient.

1882 le 23 novembre part de Marseille pour inaugurer la nouvelle ligne Suez, Mahé des Seychelles, La réunion, Maurice, Australie, Nouvelle Calédonie.

1884 – 1897 Passe sur la ligne de Chine. A cette occasion, il sera repeint en blanc. Ce jusqu'en 1905

1897 - 1898 Ligne de Méditerranée Orientale.

1898 – 1914 Ligne de l'Océan Indien, Madagascar.

 

ÉVÉNEMENTS :

1889 le 31 octobre. Durant la traversée Hong-Kong - Saïgon. Au sud des îles Paracelse, il rencontre un typhon. Le Commandant Such manœuvre, mais le 1er novembre à 06 h du matin il tombe en travers à la suite de la rupture de sa drosse de gouvernail et puis de celle de rechange. Pendant 20 mn le navire sera en perdition. Le salon et les cabines sont très endommagés, les claires voies enfoncées. Le Commandant et plusieurs membres de l'équipage sont blessés. Mais on réussit à réparer la drosse, le commissaire obtient l'aide des passagers pour concourir au sauvetage du navire. Plus tard, le cambusier A. Grazielly représentera cet instant en réalisant un Ex-voto qui se trouve dans la chapelle Notre Dame du Bon Port à Antibes.

1914 – Réquisitionné, participe aux transports demandés par les autorités militaires.

1915 – Participe à l'opération des Dardanelles.

1916 – Avec le SINAÏ il participe au transport de 2370 prisonniers autrichiens entre Valona, Brindisi et Asinara.

1916 –. Avec NERA, MELBOURNE, DUMBÉA et AUSTRALIEN Transfert de 50.000 soldats de l'armée Serbe de Corfou à Salonique

1917 le 30 août à 20h45 partant de Marseille pour Madagascar avec du courrier et des passagers. Iil est en convoi tous feux éteints il est alors abordé par le cargo MALGACHE de la Compagnie Française de Madagascar affrété par la société Générale de Transport Maritime, venant d'Algérie et navigants feux allumés. Le Commandant Vallat et l'officier de quart Labeille sont à la passerelle. Le navire va couler en 10 minutes avec le commandant et 104 autres victimes dont 76 passagers sur les 503 présents à bord.

Son épave repose par 127 mètres de fond au large du phare de Planier dans la rade de Marseille. Elle vient d'être redécouverte et explorée par une équipe de plongeurs spécialisés dans les grandes profondeurs.

  

The separate colony of Queensland was established in 1859. The few inhabitants of the new colony looked to intensify economic exploitation of the land and increase the size of the population. The building of railways was seen to facilitate both of these aims and as such was given a high priority by the new Queensland government. Consequently, the Southern and Western Railway Bill was introduced to parliament in August 1863 and the government appointed Abram Fitzgibbon, an Irish engineer with international experience in railway construction, as Chief Engineer (later Commissioner for Railways). Fitzgibbon's first task was the construction of a railway between Ipswich and Toowoomba.

 

Planning for the new railway meant serious economic and geographic challenges had to be overcome. Earlier railway construction in the southern Australian colonies was modelled on the railways of Great Britain and featured broad gauge, double track, easy grades, wide radius curves and substantial station buildings. It was quickly discovered that the construction costs for such a rail system were beyond the budget of the fledgling Queensland colonial government. The natural geography around the Darling Downs also precluded an easy grade, with any railway requiring a steep ascent of the eastern escarpment of the Great Dividing Range and the crossing of several creeks and streams.

 

Fitzgibbon proposed a radical engineering solution to these challenges through the adoption of a narrow 3 feet 6 inch (1067mm) gauge. Standard gauge at the time was 4 feet 8½ inches (1435mm) and was in itself considered narrow when compared with other broad rail gauges then in use throughout the world. By using narrow gauge, savings on construction costs could be achieved. The disadvantages of such a decision meant sharper curves on ascending ranges, lower speeds, lighter bridges and as a consequence, smaller locomotives and rolling-stock. The use of narrow gauge was largely untried anywhere else in the world, except for small-scale narrow gauge operations in New Zealand and Wales.

 

Substantial cost savings were also to be made through the use of standard designs for bridges, buildings, houses and yards. At this time, the quality of Queensland timber was largely unknown and little was to be used on the first railway, except for sleepers. Bridges were to be built of iron with brick and stone culverts. It was only later that Queensland became a leader in wooden bridge design, with the emergence of elaborate timber designs and later more economical timber structures.

 

Construction of the railway was contracted to Peto, Brassey & Betts, a firm with considerable railway construction experience worldwide. A fixed sum contract was negotiated for the construction of the first line between Ipswich and Bigges Camp (today's Grandchester), with a follow on contract for four other sections of line between Bigges Camp and Toowoomba. Lady Diamantina Roma Bowen, wife of the first Governor-General of Queensland, turned the first sod of earth for the first section of railway on 25 February 1864.

 

The first consignment of construction materials arrived in Ipswich by steamer on 15 August 1864. An initial line was laid down to the wharf in Ipswich to receive consignments of materials and move them to a workshops site on level ground above. Public pressure for a bridge across the river resulted in a change of plan and the terminus was moved to South Ipswich in the business centre. A bridge was constructed to carry both road and rail and was just completed in time for the opening of the first section of rail to Grandchester.

 

The first trial run along the line with a train was on 13 April 1865. The first section of line between Ipswich and Bigges Camp (a distance of twenty-one miles) was officially opened to traffic to great public fanfare on 31 July 1865. The line ran from the Bremer Bridge and passed the original workshops and running sheds (North Ipswich Railway Workshops Complex - 601526) to the west and crossed Wide Gully. Extensions to the line were later made to Toowoomba (1867), Dalby (1868) and Warwick (1871).

 

The building of the Sadlier's Crossing Bridge and deviation, which opened in 1875, made the old line via Mihi Creek redundant and it fell out of use except for a short section to the Ipswich workshops and to service a coalmine. The line was officially closed on 26 April 1875.

 

Queensland Railways demonstrated the viability of the use of narrow gauge, thereby influencing other countries including Japan, Africa and New Zealand to also adopt the technology. The construction of the Ipswich to Bigges Camp railway, of which the Sandstone Railway Culvert at Wulkuraka is a part, set the precedent for the construction and design of the many lightly constructed and sinuous narrow gauge railways that have since been built around the world.

 

Source: Queensland Heritage Register

Exploitant : Transdev Valmy

Réseau : IDF Mobilités – Vallée de Montmorency

Ligne : 14

Lieu : Beauséjour (Enghien-les-Bains, F-95)

Lien TC Infos : tc-infos.fr/vehicule/13992

The Toraja are an ethnic group indigenous to a mountainous region of South Sulawesi, Indonesia. Their population is approximately 1,100,000, of whom 450,000 live in the regency of Tana Toraja ("Land of Toraja"). Most of the population is Christian, and others are Muslim or have local animist beliefs known as aluk ("the way"). The Indonesian government has recognized this animist belief as Aluk To Dolo ("Way of the Ancestors").

 

The word toraja comes from the Bugis Buginese language term to riaja, meaning "people of the uplands". The Dutch colonial government named the people Toraja in 1909. Torajans are renowned for their elaborate funeral rites, burial sites carved into rocky cliffs, massive peaked-roof traditional houses known as tongkonan, and colorful wood carvings. Toraja funeral rites are important social events, usually attended by hundreds of people and lasting for several days.

 

Before the 20th century, Torajans lived in autonomous villages, where they practised animism and were relatively untouched by the outside world. In the early 1900s, Dutch missionaries first worked to convert Torajan highlanders to Christianity. When the Tana Toraja regency was further opened to the outside world in the 1970s, it became an icon of tourism in Indonesia: it was exploited by tourism developers and studied by anthropologists. By the 1990s, when tourism peaked, Toraja society had changed significantly, from an agrarian model - in which social life and customs were outgrowths of the Aluk To Dolo - to a largely Christian society. Today, tourism and remittances from migrant Torajans have made for major changes in the Toraja highland, giving the Toraja a celebrity status within Indonesia and enhancing Toraja ethnic group pride.

 

ETHNIC IDENTITY

The Torajan people had little notion of themselves as a distinct ethnic group before the 20th century. Before Dutch colonization and Christianization, Torajans, who lived in highland areas, identified with their villages and did not share a broad sense of identity. Although complexes of rituals created linkages between highland villages, there were variations in dialects, differences in social hierarchies, and an array of ritual practices in the Sulawesi highland region. "Toraja" (from the coastal languages' to, meaning people; and riaja, uplands) was first used as a lowlander expression for highlanders. As a result, "Toraja" initially had more currency with outsiders - such as the Bugis and Makassarese, who constitute a majority of the lowland of Sulawesi - than with insiders. The Dutch missionaries' presence in the highlands gave rise to the Toraja ethnic consciousness in the Sa'dan Toraja region, and this shared identity grew with the rise of tourism in the Tana Toraja Regency. Since then, South Sulawesi has four main ethnic groups - the Bugis (the majority, including shipbuilders and seafarers), the Makassarese (lowland traders and seafarers), the Mandarese (traders and fishermen), and the Toraja (highland rice cultivators).

 

HISTORY

From the 17th century, the Dutch established trade and political control on Sulawesi through the Dutch East Indies Company. Over two centuries, they ignored the mountainous area in the central Sulawesi, where Torajans lived, because access was difficult and it had little productive agricultural land. In the late 19th century, the Dutch became increasingly concerned about the spread of Islam in the south of Sulawesi, especially among the Makassarese and Bugis peoples. The Dutch saw the animist highlanders as potential Christians. In the 1920s, the Reformed Missionary Alliance of the Dutch Reformed Church began missionary work aided by the Dutch colonial government. In addition to introducing Christianity, the Dutch abolished slavery and imposed local taxes. A line was drawn around the Sa'dan area and called Tana Toraja ("the land of Toraja"). Tana Toraja was first a subdivision of the Luwu kingdom that had claimed the area. In 1946, the Dutch granted Tana Toraja a regentschap, and it was recognized in 1957 as one of the regencies of Indonesia.

 

Early Dutch missionaries faced strong opposition among Torajans, especially among the elite, because the abolition of their profitable slave trade had angered them. Some Torajans were forcibly relocated to the lowlands by the Dutch, where they could be more easily controlled. Taxes were kept high, undermining the wealth of the elites. Ultimately, the Dutch influence did not subdue Torajan culture, and only a few Torajans were converted. In 1950, only 10% of the population had converted to Christianity.

 

In the 1930s, Muslim lowlanders attacked the Torajans, resulting in widespread Christian conversion among those who sought to align themselves with the Dutch for political protection and to form a movement against the Bugis and Makassarese Muslims. Between 1951 and 1965 (following Indonesian independence), southern Sulawesi faced a turbulent period as the Darul Islam separatist movement fought for an Islamic state in Sulawesi. The 15 years of guerrilla warfare led to massive conversions to

 

CHRISTIANITY

Alignment with the Indonesian government, however, did not guarantee safety for the Torajans. In 1965, a presidential decree required every Indonesian citizen to belong to one of five officially recognized religions: Islam, Christianity (Protestantism and Catholicism), Hinduism, or Buddhism. The Torajan religious belief (aluk) was not legally recognized, and the Torajans raised their voices against the law. To make aluk accord with the law, it had to be accepted as part of one of the official religions. In 1969, Aluk To Dolo ("the way of ancestors") was legalized as a sect of Agama Hindu Dharma, the official name of Hinduism in Indonesia.

 

SOCIETY

There are three main types of affiliation in Toraja society: family, class and religion.

 

FAMILY AFFILIATION

Family is the primary social and political grouping in Torajan society. Each village is one extended family, the seat of which is the tongkonan, a traditional Torajan house. Each tongkonan has a name, which becomes the name of the village. The familial dons maintain village unity. Marriage between distant cousins (fourth cousins and beyond) is a common practice that strengthens kinship. Toraja society prohibits marriage between close cousins (up to and including the third cousin) - except for nobles, to prevent the dispersal of property. Kinship is actively reciprocal, meaning that the extended family helps each other farm, share buffalo rituals, and pay off debts.

 

Each person belongs to both the mother's and the father's families, the only bilateral family line in Indonesia. Children, therefore, inherit household affiliation from both mother and father, including land and even family debts. Children's names are given on the basis of kinship, and are usually chosen after dead relatives. Names of aunts, uncles and cousins are commonly referred to in the names of mothers, fathers and siblings.

 

Before the start of the formal administration of Toraja villages by the Tana Toraja Regency, each Toraja village was autonomous. In a more complex situation, in which one Toraja family could not handle their problems alone, several villages formed a group; sometimes, villages would unite against other villages. Relationship between families was expressed through blood, marriage, and shared ancestral houses (tongkonan), practically signed by the exchange of water buffalo and pigs on ritual occasions. Such exchanges not only built political and cultural ties between families but defined each person's place in a social hierarchy: who poured palm wine, who wrapped a corpse and prepared offerings, where each person could or could not sit, what dishes should be used or avoided, and even what piece of meat constituted one's share.

 

CLASS AFFILIATION

In early Toraja society, family relationships were tied closely to social class. There were three strata: nobles, commoners, and slaves (slavery was abolished in 1909 by the Dutch East Indies government). Class was inherited through the mother. It was taboo, therefore, to marry "down" with a woman of lower class. On the other hand, marrying a woman of higher class could improve the status of the next generation. The nobility's condescending attitude toward the commoners is still maintained today for reasons of family prestige.

 

Nobles, who were believed to be direct descendants of the descended person from heaven, lived in tongkonans, while commoners lived in less lavish houses (bamboo shacks called banua). Slaves lived in small huts, which had to be built around their owner's tongkonan. Commoners might marry anyone, but nobles preferred to marry in-family to maintain their status. Sometimes nobles married Bugis or Makassarese nobles. Commoners and slaves were prohibited from having death feasts. Despite close kinship and status inheritance, there was some social mobility, as marriage or change in wealth could affect an individuals status. Wealth was counted by the ownership of water buffaloes.

 

Slaves in Toraja society were family property. Sometimes Torajans decided to become slaves when they incurred a debt, pledging to work as payment. Slaves could be taken during wars, and slave trading was common. Slaves could buy their freedom, but their children still inherited slave status. Slaves were prohibited from wearing bronze or gold, carving their houses, eating from the same dishes as their owners, or having sex with free women - a crime punishable by death.

 

RELIGIOUS AFFILIATION

Toraja's indigenous belief system is polytheistic animism, called aluk, or "the way" (sometimes translated as "the law"). In the Toraja myth, the ancestors of Torajan people came down from heaven using stairs, which were then used by the Torajans as a communication medium with Puang Matua, the Creator. The cosmos, according to aluk, is divided into the upper world (heaven), the world of man (earth), and the underworld. At first, heaven and earth were married, then there was a darkness, a separation, and finally the light. Animals live in the underworld, which is represented by rectangular space enclosed by pillars, the earth is for mankind, and the heaven world is located above, covered with a saddle-shaped roof. Other Toraja gods include Pong Banggai di Rante (god of Earth), Indo' Ongon-Ongon (a goddess who can cause earthquakes), Pong Lalondong (god of death), and Indo' Belo Tumbang (goddess of medicine); there are many more.

 

The earthly authority, whose words and actions should be cleaved to both in life (agriculture) and death (funerals), is called to minaa (an aluk priest). Aluk is not just a belief system; it is a combination of law, religion, and habit. Aluk governs social life, agricultural practices, and ancestral rituals. The details of aluk may vary from one village to another. One common law is the requirement that death and life rituals be separated. Torajans believe that performing death rituals might ruin their corpses if combined with life rituals. The two rituals are equally important. During the time of the Dutch missionaries, Christian Torajans were prohibited from attending or performing life rituals, but were allowed to perform death rituals. Consequently, Toraja's death rituals are still practised today, while life rituals have diminished.

 

CULTURE

TONGKONAN

Tongkonan are the traditional Torajan ancestral houses. They stand high on wooden piles, topped with a layered split-bamboo roof shaped in a sweeping curved arc, and they are incised with red, black, and yellow detailed wood carvings on the exterior walls. The word "tongkonan" comes from the Torajan tongkon ("to sit").

 

Tongkonan are the center of Torajan social life. The rituals associated with the tongkonan are important expressions of Torajan spiritual life, and therefore all family members are impelled to participate, because symbolically the tongkonan represents links to their ancestors and to living and future kin. According to Torajan myth, the first tongkonan was built in heaven on four poles, with a roof made of Indian cloth. When the first Torajan ancestor descended to earth, he imitated the house and held a large ceremony.

 

The construction of a tongkonan is laborious work and is usually done with the help of the extended family. There are three types of tongkonan. The tongkonan layuk is the house of the highest authority, used as the "center of government". The tongkonan pekamberan belongs to the family members who have some authority in local traditions. Ordinary family members reside in the tongkonan batu. The exclusivity to the nobility of the tongkonan is diminishing as many Torajan commoners find lucrative employment in other parts of Indonesia. As they send back money to their families, they enable the construction of larger tongkonan.

 

WOOD CARVINGS

To express social and religious concepts, Torajans carve wood, calling it Pa'ssura (or "the writing"). Wood carvings are therefore Toraja's cultural manifestation.

 

Each carving receives a special name, and common motifs are animals and plants that symbolize some virtue. For example, water plants and animals, such as crabs, tadpoles and water weeds, are commonly found to symbolize fertility. In some areas noble elders claim these symbols refer to strength of noble family, but not everyone agrees. The overall meaning of groups of carved motifs on houses remains debated and tourism has further complicated these debates because some feel a uniform explanation must be presented to tourists. The image to the left shows an example of Torajan wood carving, consisting of 15 square panels. The center bottom panel represents buffalo or wealth, a wish for many buffaloes for the family. The center panel represents a knot and a box, a hope that all of the family's offspring will be happy and live in harmony, like goods kept safe in a box. The top left and top right squares represent an aquatic animal, indicating the need for fast and hard work, just like moving on the surface of water. It also represents the need for a certain skill to produce good results.

 

Regularity and order are common features in Toraja wood carving (see table below), as well as abstracts and geometrical designs. Nature is frequently used as the basis of Toraja's ornaments, because nature is full of abstractions and geometries with regularities and ordering. Toraja's ornaments have been studied in ethnomathematics to reveal their mathematical structure, but Torajans base this art only on approximations. To create an ornament, bamboo sticks are used as a geometrical tool.

 

FUNERAL RITES

In Toraja society, the funeral ritual is the most elaborate and expensive event. The richer and more powerful the individual, the more expensive is the funeral. In the aluk religion, only nobles have the right to have an extensive death feast. The death feast of a nobleman is usually attended by thousands and lasts for several days. A ceremonial site, called rante, is usually prepared in a large, grassy field where shelters for audiences, rice barns, and other ceremonial funeral structures are specially made by the deceased family. Flute music, funeral chants, songs and poems, and crying and wailing are traditional Toraja expressions of grief with the exceptions of funerals for young children, and poor, low-status adults.

 

The ceremony is often held weeks, months, or years after the death so that the deceased's family can raise the significant funds needed to cover funeral expenses. Torajans traditionally believe that death is not a sudden, abrupt event, but a gradual process toward Puya (the land of souls, or afterlife). During the waiting period, the body of the deceased is wrapped in several layers of cloth and kept under the tongkonan. The soul of the deceased is thought to linger around the village until the funeral ceremony is completed, after which it begins its journey to Puya.

 

Another component of the ritual is the slaughter of water buffalo. The more powerful the person who died, the more buffalo are slaughtered at the death feast. Buffalo carcasses, including their heads, are usually lined up on a field waiting for their owner, who is in the "sleeping stage". Torajans believe that the deceased will need the buffalo to make the journey and that they will be quicker to arrive at Puya if they have many buffalo. Slaughtering tens of water buffalo and hundreds of pigs using a machete is the climax of the elaborate death feast, with dancing and music and young boys who catch spurting blood in long bamboo tubes. Some of the slaughtered animals are given by guests as "gifts", which are carefully noted because they will be considered debts of the deceased's family. However, a cockfight, known as bulangan londong, is an integral part of the ceremony. As with the sacrifice of the buffalo and the pigs, the cockfight is considered sacred because it involves the spilling of blood on the earth. In particular, the tradition requires the sacrifice of at least three chickens. However, it is common for at least 25 pairs of chickens to be set against each other in the context of the ceremony.

 

There are three methods of burial: the coffin may be laid in a cave or in a carved stone grave, or hung on a cliff. It contains any possessions that the deceased will need in the afterlife. The wealthy are often buried in a stone grave carved out of a rocky cliff. The grave is usually expensive and takes a few months to complete. In some areas, a stone cave may be found that is large enough to accommodate a whole family. A wood-carved effigy, called Tau tau, is usually placed in the cave looking out over the land. The coffin of a baby or child may be hung from ropes on a cliff face or from a tree. This hanging grave usually lasts for years, until the ropes rot and the coffin falls to the ground.

 

In the ritual called Ma'Nene, that takes place each year in August, the bodies of the deceased are exhumed to be washed, groomed and dressed in new clothes. The mummies are then walked around the village.

 

DANCE AND MUSIC

Torajans perform dances on several occasions, most often during their elaborate funeral ceremonies. They dance to express their grief, and to honour and even cheer the deceased person because he is going to have a long journey in the afterlife. First, a group of men form a circle and sing a monotonous chant throughout the night to honour the deceased (a ritual called Ma'badong). This is considered by many Torajans to be the most important component of the funeral ceremony. On the second funeral day, the Ma'randing warrior dance is performed to praise the courage of the deceased during life. Several men perform the dance with a sword, a large shield made from buffalo skin, a helmet with a buffalo horn, and other ornamentation. The Ma'randing dance precedes a procession in which the deceased is carried from a rice barn to the rante, the site of the funeral ceremony. During the funeral, elder women perform the Ma'katia dance while singing a poetic song and wearing a long feathered costume. The Ma'akatia dance is performed to remind the audience of the generosity and loyalty of the deceased person. After the bloody ceremony of buffalo and pig slaughter, a group of boys and girls clap their hands while performing a cheerful dance called Ma'dondan.

 

As in other agricultural societies, Torajans dance and sing during harvest time. The Ma'bugi dance celebrates the thanksgiving event, and the Ma'gandangi dance is performed while Torajans are pounding rice. There are several war dances, such as the Manimbong dance performed by men, followed by the Ma'dandan dance performed by women. The aluk religion governs when and how Torajans dance. A dance called Ma'bua can be performed only once every 12 years. Ma'bua is a major Toraja ceremony in which priests wear a buffalo head and dance around a sacred tree.

 

A traditional musical instrument of the Toraja is a bamboo flute called a Pa'suling (suling is an Indonesian word for flute). This six-holed flute (not unique to the Toraja) is played at many dances, such as the thanksgiving dance Ma'bondensan, where the flute accompanies a group of shirtless, dancing men with long fingernails. The Toraja have indigenous musical instruments, such as the Pa'pelle (made from palm leaves) and the Pa'karombi (the Torajan version of a jaw harp). The Pa'pelle is played during harvest time and at house inauguration ceremonies.

 

LANGUAGE

The ethnic Toraja language is dominant in Tana Toraja with the main language as the Sa'dan Toraja. Although the national Indonesian language is the official language and is spoken in the community, all elementary schools in Tana Toraja teach Toraja language.Language varieties of Toraja, including Kalumpang, Mamasa, Tae' , Talondo' , Toala' , and Toraja-Sa'dan, belong to the Malayo-Polynesian language from the Austronesian family. At the outset, the isolated geographical nature of Tana Toraja formed many dialects between the Toraja languages themselves. After the formal administration of Tana Toraja, some Toraja dialects have been influenced by other languages through the transmigration program, introduced since the colonialism period, and it has been a major factor in the linguistic variety of Toraja languages. A prominent attribute of Toraja language is the notion of grief. The importance of death ceremony in Toraja culture has characterized their languages to express intricate degrees of grief and mourning. The Toraja language contains many terms referring to sadness, longing, depression, and mental pain. Giving a clear expression of the psychological and physical effect of loss is a catharsis and sometimes lessens the pain of grief itself.

 

ECONOMY

Prior to Suharto's "New Order" administration, the Torajan economy was based on agriculture, with cultivated wet rice in terraced fields on mountain slopes, and supplemental cassava and maize crops. Much time and energy were devoted to raising water buffalo, pigs, and chickens, primarily for ceremonial sacrifices and consumption. Coffee was the first significant cash crop produced in Toraja, and was introduced in the mid 19th century, changing the local economy towards commodity production for external markets and gaining an excellent reputation for quality in the international market .

 

With the commencement of the New Order in 1965, Indonesia's economy developed and opened to foreign investment. In Toraja, a coffee plantation and factory was established by Key Coffee of Japan, and Torajan coffee regained a reputation for quality within the growing international specialty coffee sector Multinational oil and mining companies opened new operations in Indonesia during the 1970s and 1980s. Torajans, particularly younger ones, relocated to work for the foreign companies - to Kalimantan for timber and oil, to Papua for mining, to the cities of Sulawesi and Java, and many went to Malaysia. The out-migration of Torajans was steady until 1985. and has continued since, with remittances sent back by emigre Torajans performing an important role within the contemporary economy.

 

Tourism commenced in Toraja in the 1970s, and accelerated in the 1980s and 1990s. Between 1984 and 1997, a significant number of Torajans obtained their incomes from tourism, working in and owning hotels, as tour guides, drivers, or selling souvenirs. With the rise of political and economic instability in Indonesia in the late 1990s - including religious conflicts elsewhere on Sulawesi - tourism in Tana Toraja has declined dramatically. Toraja continues to be a well known origin for Indonesian coffee, grown by both smallholders and plantation estates, although migration, remittances and off-farm income is considered far more important to most households, even those in rural areas.

 

TOURISM AND CULTURAL CHANGE

Before the 1970s, Toraja was almost unknown to Western tourism. In 1971, about 50 Europeans visited Tana Toraja. In 1972, at least 400 visitors attended the funeral ritual of Puang of Sangalla, the highest-ranking nobleman in Tana Toraja and the so-called "last pure-blooded Toraja noble." The event was documented by National Geographic and broadcast in several European countries. In 1976, about 12,000 tourists visited the regency and in 1981, Torajan sculpture was exhibited in major North American museums. "The land of the heavenly kings of Tana Toraja", as written in the exhibition brochure, embraced the outside world.

 

In 1984, the Indonesian Ministry of Tourism declared Tana Toraja Regency the prima donna of South Sulawesi. Tana Toraja was heralded as "the second stop after Bali". Tourism was increasing dramatically: by 1985, a total number of 150,000 foreigners had visited the Regency (in addition to 80,000 domestic tourists), and the annual number of foreign visitors was recorded at 40,000 in 1989. Souvenir stands appeared in Rantepao, the cultural center of Toraja, roads were sealed at the most-visited tourist sites, new hotels and tourist-oriented restaurants were opened, and an airstrip was opened in the Regency in 1981.

 

Tourism developers have marketed Tana Toraja as an exotic adventure - an area rich in culture and off the beaten track. Western tourists expected to see stone-age villages and pagan funerals. Toraja is for tourists who have gone as far as Bali and are willing to see more of the wild, "untouched" islands. However, they were more likely to see a Torajan wearing a hat and denim, living in a Christian society. Tourists felt that the tongkonan and other Torajan rituals had been preconceived to make profits, and complained that the destination was too commercialized. This has resulted in several clashes between Torajans and tourism developers, whom Torajans see as outsiders.

 

A clash between local Torajan leaders and the South Sulawesi provincial government (as a tourist developer) broke out in 1985. The government designated 18 Toraja villages and burial sites as traditional tourist attractions. Consequently, zoning restrictions were applied to these areas, such that Torajans themselves were barred from changing their tongkonans and burial sites. The plan was opposed by some Torajan leaders, as they felt that their rituals and traditions were being determined by outsiders. As a result, in 1987, the Torajan village of Kété Kesú and several other designated tourist attractions closed their doors to tourists. This closure lasted only a few days, as the villagers found it too difficult to survive without the income from selling souvenirs.

 

Tourism has also transformed Toraja society. Originally, there was a ritual which allowed commoners to marry nobles (puang) and thereby gain nobility for their children. However, the image of Torajan society created for the tourists, often by "lower-ranking" guides, has eroded its traditional strict hierarchy. High status is not as esteemed in Tana Toraja as it once was. Many low-ranking men can declare themselves and their children nobles by gaining enough wealth through work outside the region and then marrying a noble woman.

 

WIKIPEDIA

People responsible for protecting children from across the UK attended a national child sexual exploitation conference last Thursday (21 May) in Manchester.

 

Hosted by Project Phoenix – Greater Manchester’s multi-agency response to tackling child sexual exploitation, the event showcased the work being done across the region to protect children from abuse.

 

Greater Manchester Police and Crime Commissioner Tony Lloyd, Director of Salford City Council and Lead Officer for Project Phoenix Jim Taylor, and Greater Manchester Police Chief Constable Sir Peter Fahy all spoke at the event.

 

Sir Peter Fahy said: “There is still much to do but agencies now work much closer together. There are no easy answers when the nature of an abusive relationship means the victim continues to put themselves at risk. Parents need help in understanding how victims are groomed on the internet and we need to do more so that teachers and peers can recognise the signs of inappropriate and risky relationships.”

 

Tony Lloyd said: “Project Phoenix stands as an exemplar of partnership working and what can be achieved when partner agencies truly pull together with a single goal in mind. This event is a chance for us to showcase the work being done across the region and teach others what we’ve learnt in our combined efforts to prevent abuse, encourage victims to come forward, and bring offenders to justice.

 

“But, while we should be proud of our successes so far, we are still on a long journey with much yet to do. I urge everyone – members of the public as well as statutory agencies – to continue prioritising this issue, to continue doing all we can to fight this terrible scourge on our society, and to support those victims that have been through so much.”

 

Jim Taylor said: “The Project Phoenix CSE Conference provides an invaluable opportunity to share best practice and strengthen our multi-agency response to safeguarding young people. We feel it will be a hugely beneficial day for police officers and those working within the public and third sector with a responsibility for tackling CSE.”

 

Following the speakers, a selection of practical workshops gave delegates the chance to talk with experts from across Project Phoenix about the work they have done to safeguard children and young people in Greater Manchester.

 

Project Phoenix is a multi-agency response to CSE across the whole of Greater Manchester. The project brings together police, local authorities, NHS and third sector organisations, using their collective expertise to safeguard vulnerable young people at risk of exploitation and target those who would try to exploit them.

Please visit www.itsnotokay.co.uk for information for children, young people, parents, carers and professionals on how to spot the signs of child sex exploitation and what to do about it.

 

To find out more about Greater Manchester Police please visit our website.

www.gmp.police.uk

 

You should call 101, the national non-emergency number, to report crime and other concerns that do not require an emergency response.

 

Always call 999 in an emergency, such as when a crime is in progress, violence is being used or threatened or where there is danger to life.

 

You can also call anonymously with information about crime to Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111.

 

Crimestoppers is an independent charity who will not want your name, just your information. Your call will not be traced or recorded and you do not have to go to court or give a statement.

 

Ligne 154 - Arrêt : République

Exploitant : Keolis Armor

Réseau STAR - Rennes

Véhicule : MAN Lion's City A21 CNG

Identification : 1609 (EP-602-NN)

Exploitant : Keolis Bordeaux Métropole

Dépôt : Dépôt de Bastide-Niel

 

Réseau : TBM (Bordeaux Métropole)

Ligne : Citeis 45

Voiture : 4506

Destination : LE BOUSCAT Place Ravezies

 

Suite à des travaux Rue Raymond Lavigne, la Citeis 45 était déviée par l'Allée Jean Giono. Cet itinéraire deviendra définitif, avec la création d'un nouvel arrêt ("Nuyens") en remplacement de celui de l'autre rue ("Sabarots").

 

16/09/2019 15:32

Allée Jean Giono ; F-33 BORDEAUX

This is a long description but worth the time.

 

Col. Peter J. Ortiz USMC

A Leathernecks war in Africa and Europe

By Rocklin D. Lyons

 

The obituary for Col. Peter J. Ortiz on May 21, 1988 read “Col. Peter J. Ortiz, a legendary officer in the Marine Corps, died of cancer Monday at the Veterans Medical Center in Prescott Arizona. He was 75 years old and lived in Prescott”.

 

During his active military service Ortiz was awarded two Navy Crosses, The Legion of Merit with combat V, Two Purple Hearts, The Order of the British Empire, and five Croix de Guerre. The French government also made him a Chevalier of the Legion of Honor along with numerous other military honors.

 

In a ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery Col. Ortiz was laid to rest with full military honors with representatives of the British and French governments in attendance along with a large delegation of Marines. Thus ended a remarkable life. Two not very memorable films 13 Rue Madeleine (1947) and Operation Secret (1952) were based on his exploits.

 

Born in 1913 in New York City to a French father and an American mother, Ortiz spent most of his early years in La Jolla in Southern California. However, after elementary school, at the insistence of his father he moved to France and attended the Lycée de Pau and Bayonne. Later he spent a year at the College du Montcel in Versailles. Young Ortiz enjoyed sports and outdoor activity more than study and in 1932 at the age of 19 he enlisted in the French Foreign legion. When his father, a wealthy publisher, learned what he had done he tried to buy young Peter’s way out but Ortiz refused.

 

The true motivation for young Peter Ortiz to join the Foreign Legion will probably never be known. Many who join the Legion are running away from the law or serious family problems. There is no evidence that that was the case with Ortiz, who was from a upper class background and had never been in any serious trouble. Perhaps it was merely a youthful desire for adventure. Whatever the reasons for his joining, he did well in the Legion.

 

Over the next five years he rose from private to acting lieutenant within the Legion. During this time he fought boredom more than the Riff Berbers. He was a model soldier in the 7th Regiment where he received his initial parachute training and advanced to the rank of sergeant in charge of an armoured car squadron. Wounded in 1933 while serving in Africa he received numerous decorations, including the Croix De Guerre with two palms, one gold star, one silver star, five citations, the Croix de Combatants, the Ouissam Alouite and the Medal Militaire. Although offered a permanent commission if he would re-enlist, he resigned in 1937 and returned to the states.

 

For a brief period Ortiz acted as a technical director in Hollywood on military matters, however when war broke out in 1939 he was determined to return to France to fight. Sailing out of Canada for Europe, his ship was torpedoed by a German U-boat but his luck held and he was picked up and continued on to France.

 

In October of 1939 he once again enlisted in the French Foreign Legion and in May of 1940 he received a battlefield commission and rose to First lieutenant. During this period he received numerous additional French decorations. Ortiz was badly wounded in June of 1940 when he drove a motorcycle through a German camp and blew up a gasoline storage facility. His wound left him temporarily paralyzed and he was captured and imprisoned as a POW by the Germans

 

For the next year Ortiz was moved from one prison camp to another in Germany, Poland and Austria. Having made several escape attempts the Germans regarded him as a troublemaker and treated him accordingly. Finally, in October of 1941 he was successful in his escape and in evading the Gestapo and made it safely into Portugal. While in Lisbon both the British and the Free French offered him commissions but his back was not yet completely healed and he wanted to serve as an American.

 

Returning to the States by way of Lisbon, Ortiz found himself the subject of intense interest by the Army and Navy intelligence services who debriefed him extensively. He was promised a commission but when it was not forthcoming by June of 1942 he enlisted in the United States Marine Corps and reported to Parris Island for recruit training.

 

One can imagine the consternation of his drill instructors when he appeared wearing his decorations (as he was entitled to do) while a recruit in training. His unique history quickly came to the attention of Colonel Louis R. Jones the Chief of Staff of the recruit depot who promptly recommended Ortiz for a commission. His recommendation included the comment "We spotted him shortly after his arrival. From appearances, the Marine Corps would be unbeatable if all our men were like him."

 

On August 1st of 1942 Peter J. Ortiz was commissioned a second lieutenant in the Marine Corps reserve and due to his special qualifications he was promoted again on December 3, 1942 to the rank of Captain. Shortly after receiving his commission he received orders to attend the Parachute school at Camp LeJeune, North Carolina even though he was a qualified parachutist with over one hundred jumps with the Legion.

Among his other unique skills, Ortiz spoke ten languages, five fluently, including French and Arabic. On December 21st 1942 he was assigned duties as assistant naval attaché in Tangiers Morocco. Ortiz's orders were extraordinarily general which allowed him to attach himself to any unit he saw fit. In his after action report Captain Ortiz wrote:

I was, for excellent personal reasons and as a representative of the Marine Corps, particularly desirous of seeing and taking part in action against the Germans. I happened to be in Gafsa* when the evacuation order was received. Although later claimed by the press as a perfect example of an orderly and well-planned retreat, I thought it characterized by confusion and an alarming contagion of panic. Dozens of vehicles were damaged or abandoned and an number of American soldiers and local civilians run over through inadequate traffic control. Bridges were prematurely blown up, stranding our men on the wrong side

 

In the weeks following, Ortiz attached himself first to the British Derbyshire Yoemanry; next with a Foreign Legion unit and then with the American 1st Armored Division. During this time he came under fire from mortars, aircraft and the deadly German 88mm dual-purpose guns.

 

On 8 March Ortiz reported to The British Colonel commanding BRANDON at Guelmna and wsa sent forward to a base at Le Kouif supporting the 2nd Corps. Here he was assigned a mixed squad of 5 Spaniards and a British radio operator and ordered to meet up with another commando unit and “do some mischief with the jerries.”

In his excellent paper written for the Marine Corps Command and Staff College Major Robert E. Mattingly USMC described Ortiz actions: On the night of 18 March, Ortiz' squad pushed off in a pouring rain. Three days later, they were well beyond the Allied lines and moving across the rough cross-compartments northwest of the pass. It was still raining. At 2300, Ortiz called a halt. Leaving his assistant, a Spaniard named Amando, in charge, he struck out alone for the main roadway far below. Crossing a valley in which he constantly sank to his knees in mud, Ortiz finally reached the highway and began cautiously looking for tank tracks. It was pitch black and the downpour blotted out any sound.

 

Moving slowly in and out of the shallow wadis which cut across the roadbed, Ortiz spent nearly two hours on his personal reconnaissance. Then, just before turning back, the enemy he was seeking found him.

 

Ortiz was hit by the first burst of fire. One bullet shattered his right hand and another grazed his left leg. Rolling to his left, he saw the flashes of a machine gun 30 yards to his front. Rising to one knee he began throwing Petard anti-tank grenades left-handed. The first fell short, but the second scored a direct hit, exploding with "a terrific blast that stopped all automatic fire"

 

With rifle shots still singing around him from another position further to the right, Ortiz crawled away. Despite loss of blood and the effects of shock, he managed to reach his men, who carried and dragged him all the way back to friendly lines.

 

Ortiz was hospitalized and after successful surgery on his hand he returned to his commander and requested more combat duty. Instead he was ordered back to the states to recuperate. He arrived in Washington DC on April 27 and rather than take a well deserved rest he reported immediately to Headquarters Marine Corps for further assignment.

 

After recovering from his wounds he was assigned to the OSS and in July of 1943 Cpt. Ortiz flew to London for further assignment in France with the French resistance. Assigned to a team of British, French and American agents in Southeastern France in the Haute Savole region with a former British schoolmaster and an excellent French radio operator known as “Monnier” the team parachuted into France on January 6.

Code named UNION, the teams’ primary function was to organize guerilla warfare activity behind the German lines and to determine the military capabilities of the French units. Finding many of the French willing to fight but without weapons, UNION arranged for the clandestine delivery of weapons and then trained the French in their operation.

One of the episodes attributed to Col. Ortiz during this period appeared in Leatherneck magazine in January 1991.

 

“In the course of his duties he began frequenting a nightclub in Lyons that catered to German officers. This enabled Ortiz to gain much information regarding German activities in the area, which he turned to good use against the Germans. This Marine had worn his Marine uniform when leading Maquis groups in raids. To have an Allied officer leading them bolstered their morale immensely, especially when the uniform bore such impressive decorations.

 

One night, while Ortiz sat with the German officers at the club in Lyons, an enemy soldier damned President Franklin Roosevelt. He then damned the United States of America. And then, for whatever reason, he damned the United States Marine Corps (Ortiz later wrote that he "could not, for the life of me, figure why a German officer would so dislike American Marines when, chances were, he'd never met one.")

Perhaps Ortiz was bored. Perhaps he......he excused himself from the table and returned to his apartment where....changed into the uniform of a U.S. Marine....he then shrugged into a raincoat and returned to the club....he ordered a round of drinks ... refreshments were served.... removed his raincoat and stood brandishing his pistol. "A toast, he said, beaming, respendent in full greens and decorations, "to the President of the United States!" As the pistol moved from German officer to German officer, they emptied their glasses. He ordered another round of drinks and then offered a toast to the United States Marine Corps! After the Germans had drained their glasses, the Marine backed out, pistol leveled at his astonished hosts. He disappeared into the rainy, black night.”

 

A slightly different version of this story has Cpt. Ortiz in uniform but covered with an overcoat sitting at an outside café when upon hearing a German Officer curse the United State Marine Corps, Ortiz jumped up, threw off his coat and drawing two 45 caliber M1911 pistols proceeded to shoot the offending officers. Neither version explains why this German would single out the Marine Corps for his remarks as the Marines were not fighting in Europe other than a very few such as Ortiz on special assignments.

 

Lieutenant Colonel Robert Mattingly wrote a similar version in his prize-winning monograph, Herringbone Cloak--GI Dagger: Marines of the OSS:

Ortiz in particular was fond of going straight into the German-occupied towns. On one occasion, he strolled into a cafe dressed in a long cape. Several Germans were drinking and cursing the maquis. One mentioned the fate which would befall the filthy American swine when he was caught. (The Nazis apparently knew of Ortiz' existence in the area with the maquis) This proved a great mistake. Captain Ortiz threw back the cape revealing his Marine uniform. In each hand he held a .45 automatic. When the shooting stopped, there were fewer Nazis to plan his capture and Ortiz was gone into the night.

 

In spite of numerous difficulties due to lack of supplies, poor security and difficulty coordinating activities among the various resistance groups that often were at cross purposes to each other, Ortiz and his team successfully carried out training and operational missions against the Germans. One of his successful operation resulted in the repatriation of four allied pilots downed in France when he personally led them over the Pyrenees to safety.

 

In May of 1944 the UNION team was withdrawn to England. While in England Ortiz was promoted to Major and received the first of his Navy Crosses. The citation read::

For extraordinary heroism while attached to the United States Naval Command, Office of Strategic Services, London, England, in connection with military operations against an armed enemy, in enemy-occupied territory, from 8 January to 20 May 1944. Operating in civilian clothes and aware that he would be subject to execution in the event of his capture, Major Ortiz parachuted from an airplane with two other officers of an Inter-Allied mission to reorganize existing Maquis groups and organize additional groups in the region of Rhone. By his tact, resourcefulness and leadership, he was largely instrumental in effecting the acceptance of the mission by the local resistance leaders, and also in organizing parachute operations for the delivery of arms, ammunition and equipment for use by the Maquis in his region. Although his identity had become known to the Gestapo with the resultant increase in personal hazard, he voluntarily conducted to the Spanish border four Royal Air Force officers who had been shot down in his region, and later returned to resume his duties. Repeatedly leading successful raids during the period of this assignment, Major Ortiz inflicted heavy casualties on enemy forces greatly superior in number, with small losses to his own forces. By his heroic leadership and astuteness in planning and executing these hazardous forays, Major Ortiz served as an inspiration to his subordinates and upheld the highest traditions of the United States Naval Service.

 

The British Government also recognized Cpt. Ortiz bravery. The citation from King George VI which made him a member of the Most Honourable Order of the British Empire reads in part:

 

For four months this officer assisted in the organization of the Maquis in a most difficult department, where members were in constant danger of attack . . . he ran great risks in looking after four RAF officers who had been brought down in the neighborhood, and accompanied them to the Spanish border.

 

In the course of his efforts to obtain the release of these officers, he raided a German military garage and took ten Gestapo motors which he used frequently. . . . he procured a Gestapo pass for his own use in spite of the fact that he was well known to the enemy. . . "

 

On August 1st Maj. Ortiz returned to France in command of a team which included Army Air Forces Captain Francis Coolidge, Gunnery Sergeant Robert La Salle, Sergeants Charles Perry, John P. Bodnar, Frederick J. Brunner, and Jack R. Risler, all Marines, and a Free French officer, Joseph Arcelin, who carried false papers identifying him as a Marine. This mission was listed as UNION II. All team members wore their uniforms throughout this mission to avoid being shot as spies if captured.

 

The daylight drop into France started badly when Sergeant Perry’s parachute failed and he died in the fall. He was subsequently buried with military honors in spite of the danger that this created for those present. A total of 864 containers of equipment meant for the French Bulle Battalion were also dropped at that time adding substantially to the risk of discovery by the Germans or betrayal by local civilians.

During the days immediately following their insertion, the team instructed the battalion in the operation and maintenance of their new equipment and began patrols intended to link up with other resistance groups operating in the area. In an after action report Sergeant Brunner stated: On 14 August we proceeded to Beaufort where we made contact with other F.F.I. (Forces Francaises de liInterieur) companies and from there went on to Montgirod where we were told there were heavy concentrations of Germans. We were able to enter the town but had no sooner done so than we were heavily shelled by German batteries located in the hills around the city. We were forced to retire and hid out in the mountains near Montgirod with the Bulle Battalion. The Germans quickly surrounded the area.

 

On August 16th Maj. Ortiz and his men were in the town of Centron when a element consisting of several hundred soldiers of a German Alpine division entered the town surprising them both. Ortiz and his two of his men retreated under heavy fire to the South East part of Centron. The remainder of the team made it across the Isere River and met up with another resistance group.

 

As Ortiz and his men moved from house to house under fire from the pursuing Germans many French civilians fearing German reprisals begged the American to surrender. Knowing that the Germans had in fact conducted such reprisals Ortiz was faced with a dilemma, as he described after his liberation from a German POW camp.

Since the activities of Mission Union and its previous work were well know to the Gestapo, there was no reason to hope that we would be treated as ordinary prisoners of war. For me personally the decision to surrender was not too difficult. I had been involved in dangerous activities for many years and was mentally prepared for my number to turn up. Sergeant Bodnar was next to me and I explained the situation to him and what I intended to do. He looked me in the eye and replied, "Major, we are Marines, what you think is right goes for me too"

 

After his surrender with the two sergeants, the German commander wanted to know where the remainder of his troops were. When informed that it was just the tree of them the German was clearly skeptical, however after a thorough search of the town he was forced to accept that only three Marines had held off his battalion.

 

From September 29th thru April 10th 1945 Ortiz was held at a naval POW camp Marlag/Milag Nord where he tried several escape attempts. On April 10th the camp commandant ordered all prisoners to prepare to leave due to the proximity of allied troops. While enroute the column came under attack by British Spitfires. In the confusion Ortiz and three other prisoners made good their escape.

 

Once free in the heart of Germany there problems were not over. Maj. Ortiz in a later report stated: We spent ten days hiding, roving at night, blundering into enemy positions hoping to find our way into British lines. Luck was with us. Once we were discovered but managed to get away, and several other times we narrowly escaped detection...By the seventh night, we had returned near our camp. I made a reconnaissance of Marlag O....There seemed to be only a token guard and prisoners of war appeared to have assumed virtual control of the compounds.

 

Facing the very real threat of starvation the men simply walked back into the camp where they were met with a warm welcome by their fellow prisoners and virtually ignored by the remaining guards. On April 29th the British 7th Guards Armoured Division liberated the camp and Ortiz was flown back to England where he received his second Navy Cross. The citation read: For extraordinary heroism while serving with the Office of Strategic Services during operations behind enemy Axis lines in the Savoie Department of France, from 1 August 1944, to 27 April 1945. After parachuting into a region where his activities had made him an object of intensive search by the Gestapo, Major Ortiz valiantly continued his work in coordinating and leading resistance groups in that section. When he and his team were attacked and surrounded during a special mission designed to immobilize enemy reinforcements stationed in that area, he disregarded the possibility of escape and, in an effort to spare villagers severe reprisals by the Gestapo, surrendered to this sadistic Geheim Staats Polizei (sic). Subsequently imprisoned and subjected to numerous interrogations, he divulged nothing, and the story of this intrepid Marine Major and his team has become a brilliant legend in that section of France where acts of bravery were considered commonplace. By his outstanding loyalty and self-sacrificing devotion to duty, Major Ortiz contributed materially to the success of operations against a relentless enemy, and upheld the highest traditions of the United States Naval Service.

 

When the war ended, Ortiz was in California being briefed for a mission to Indo-China. After his discharge Ortiz resumed his association with John Ford and appeared in numerous movies in small parts including two with John Wayne. He was never comfortable as an actor and refused to watch his own movies. He also acted as a technical advisor on other films.

 

Maj. Ortiz remained in the Marine Corps reserve and was promoted to Lieutenant Colonel. In 1954 Lt. Col. Ortiz requested to be returned to active duty and assigned to South East Asia as an observer however his offer was declined because "current military policies will not permit the assignment requested." He was promoted to full Colonel upon his retirement in 1955.

 

In 1994, six years after his death, Col. Ortiz was again honored by the citizens of Centron and Les Saisies in ceremonies commemorating the fiftieth anniversary of the events which Col. Ortiz played such a prominent part. In attendance were Colonel Ortiz' wife, Jean, and their son, Marine Lieutenant Colonel Peter J. Ortiz, Jr., retired Sergeant Major John P. Bodnar, and former Sergeant Jack R. Risler. Also present at the ceremonies were Lieutenant Colonel Robert L. Parnell II, USMC, assistant Naval Attaché in Paris, and Colonel Peter T. Metzger, commander of the 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit, then in the Mediterranean, together with a color guard and an honor guard from his unit.

 

A short time later the town of Centron held its own ceremonies when it unveiled a plaque naming the town center ";Place Peter Ortiz"

 

A final comment about Peter Ortiz came from the son of one of the Royal Air force Pilots who Ortiz assisted to escape in 1944. Ian Bell, the son of Ernest Bell DFC wrote that his father could not talk about the war without talking about the courage of Col. Ortiz. What amazed him most about Ortiz was that throughout the time of their escape Ortiz wore his complete Marine Corps uniform under his coat even in rail stations swarming with Germans and knowing that the Germans would have loved to have captured him. Ian Bell maintained that Peter Ortiz was probably the bravest man he had ever met.

Semper fi, Colonel.

 

Authors note: Sources for material on Col. Ortiz are limited. Much of the material contained above comes from a monograph written by Marine Historian Benis Frank and Herringbone Cloak—GI Dagger: Marines of the OSS by Major Robert E. Mattingly, USMC.

 

© Nicolas DUPREY / CD 78

Ischia under fire the first photo that I take during the beginning of the blaze

 

The emergency of blazes and bushfires are damaging South Italy. This is only a cause of hot weather and high temperatures? Autorithies don’t think so, and the trail of criminal intents is followed.

 

In Peschici on south east in Apulia, a deep crisis of blazes is explosed in the end of July where a lots of tourist of hotels and camping are escaped losing everything helped only by some fishermen during the laterness of benefit associations’ arrive . This news was the great exploit of this year for reintroduce this problem in italian journalism reports...But what does it means that criminal intents are interested in this situation?

   

Last week I was in Ischia, an Italian island near by Naples, here, where the racket organisation of Camorra is deeply present. Fire has start to shine in the night of Sunday on a rocky hill with few houses. Here fire was extinguished only at 12 p.m of Saturday because the difficult clime situation ( a strong wind and a sunny day) and the presence of other 137 important fires all around Campania has delay the action of benefit associations.

 

In Italy laws establish that on a burned ground is prohibited to do anything, but, in this duty time, Camorra and racket organizations promote their illegal building speculation. After, when a “eco moster” a great unauthorized built is done, is possibile to legalize it with a money remission.For eliminating this hard situation, the State invite regions and town damaged by this problem to create some land registries where to signal zones hit by this emergency.Today this acts of pyromaniacs are punished with 7 years of prison but is hard to find guilties.

Exploitant : Voyages Nombalais

Réseau Tourisme

Substitution SNCF en raison de travaux pendant le week-end du 11 novembre 2022.

Exploitant : Archambault Travel

Réseau Tourisme

Substitution SNCF en raison de travaux pendant le week-end du 11 novembre 2022.

Exploitation Madness! This is now my largest DVD set :) It's gonna take awhile to get around to watching all of these.

 

DVDs, presents.

movie: Assassin Of Youth. movie: Damaged Lives. movie: Exploitation Madness. movie: Gambling With Souls. movie: Maniac. movie: Marihuana. movie: Narcotic. movie: Reefer Madness. movie: Sex Madness. movie: Test Tube Babies. movie: The Cocaine Fiends.

 

January 15, 2009.

  

... Read my blog at ClintJCL.wordpress.com

 

mémoire2cité - offrir une nouvelle « manière d’habiter » député de la circonscription et Ministre de la reconstruction et de l’Urbanisme de 1948 à 1952, qu’une négation de l’urbanisme, une cité industrieuse où la désagrégation du principal matériel de construction, le grès houiller, « donnait aux façades , à l’ensemble des objets et même des gens une teinte grisâtre et triste » (3) et pour laquelle il fait ce constat : « Partout où le regard se posait, l’indispensable effort apparaissait avec la même urgence : les travaux utiles n’avaient pas été faits en leur temps et leur ampleur ne manquait pas d’impressionner » (4).

 

En avril 1953, il se présente aux élections municipales dans un contexte politique local confus qui lui est favorable car la gauche est divisée. Son programme électoral axé sur le logement et l’éducation pour tous plaît même s’il envisage des augmentations d’impôts. Il convient donc d’envisager l’action de Claudius-Petit à Firminy, de se demander quelles relations ses concitoyens ont tissées avec lui et au-delà avec sa mémoire, de mesurer son empreinte.

 

Dès son arrivée, il met en place les structures pour agir : en 1954 un service communal du logement et une association Propagande et Actions contre les taudis sont créés. Parallèlement, souhaitant avoir une maîtrise d’ouvrage pleine et entière il devient président de l’Office HLM municipal. Il aspire à mettre en place l’idée énoncée lors du congrès de l’Unitec (Union des Ingénieurs et des Techniciens Combattants) auquel il a assisté en 1944 : l’habitation peut et doit devenir un service public. Rapidement il réunit autour d’un plan de la ville des architectes rencontrés lors de cette manifestation : Marcel Roux et André Sive. Il apprécie particulièrement de travailler avec eux mais, ami de Le Corbusier, il voudrait offrir à celui-ci un lieu pour une réalisation vaste, globale et libre de ses idées. Il est en effet convaincu de la justesse de l’architecture moderne et en 1952 il a inauguré l’unité d’habitation de Marseille en ces mots :

 

« C’est, au milieu de toute une série d’immeubles expérimentaux que l’Etat a lancée dans les années qui ont suivi la libération, vraisemblablement la seule qui mérite pleinement et totalement son nom d’expérience : la conception de l’immeuble en lui-même, la conception du logement, l’équipement du logement et j’allais presque dire jusqu’à la manière d’habiter »Or c’est justement une nouvelle manière d’habiter que le maire cherche à instaurer. En 1956, l’état de la ville reste désastreux @ Firminy et St-Etienne et tous le Gier , toute l'Ondaine, tout le 42 la Loire le Forez. Eugène Claudius-Petit souhaite la faire visiter au président de la Haute-Autorité du Charbon et de l’Acier, commission de laquelle il a obtenu une aide substantielle deux ans auparavant pour la modernisation des ateliers et forges de la Loire employeur de plusieurs milliers de personnes dans l’agglomération stéphanoise. Il prévient Delouvrier que parcourir Firminy c’est « suivre (…) [un périple] au milieu d’un habitat qu’on ne sait plus comment nommer et qui constitue l’essentiel de la ville (…) ». Dans cette lettre Claudius-Petit expose aussi une partie de son programme en ajoutant :

 

« (…) il me paraît beaucoup plus facile d’assurer correctement le financement des prolongements du logis, des abords des immeubles, de l’environnement (…), salles de réunion (…), maison des jeunes c’est à dire ce qui rend la vie plus aimable et les relations plus humaines en un mot tout ce qui manifeste d’une manière tangible la solidarité d’une communauté (…) ces équipements que notre pauvre pays bêtement utilitaire, considère comme un luxe alors qu’ils sont l’indispensable dans une société qui se veut en progrès ; l’ennui c’est qu’elle croit l’être ! » .

 

Eugène Claudius-Petit reste fidèle aux grands principes sur lesquels a reposé son action au Ministère de la Reconstruction et de l’urbanisme : il est donc clair pour lui qu’il faut œuvrer dans deux directions : reconstruire la ville sur elle-même, en son centre en éradiquant les taudis, et construire un nouveau quartier, par le biais d'une opération du secteur industrialisé, d'environ mille logements HLM. Sa participation à une opération de ce type à Saint-Etienne (Beaulieu-le-Rond-Point) lui facilite la tâche car un collectif d'entreprises et d'architectes est déjà constitué et prêt à renouveler l'expérience. Son objectif est donc d’appliquer à une ville moyenne, à échelle humaine les grands principes qu’il a prônés étant ministre. Firminy peut donc être envisagée comme un modèle qu’Eugène Claudius-Petit souhaite voir s’accomplir. Mais comme il l’écrit, « au plan local, on n’a pas le droit de se tromper, au plan national, on peut raconter n’importe quoi, ça s’arrange » (7). Il a beaucoup d’ambition pour cette ville et a la volonté clairement affirmée de changer le logement et par lui la ville et ainsi peut-être la vie de ses administrés.

 

Eugène Claudius-Petit profite de sa position d’ancien ministre pour faire avancer les dossiers de Firminy dans les différents ministères. Ainsi, dès septembre 1953, il présente ses projets au ministre de la Reconstruction et demande également un spécialiste de l'habitat défectueux pour évaluer les besoins dans le détail. Surtout il connaît très bien les dossiers, les financements possibles, les emprunts et les subventions susceptibles d'être accordés et son expérience offre à son action efficacité et rapidité. En effet les premières réalisations sortent de terre. Un premier immeuble de relogement s'élève déjà, tandis qu'au centre de la ville un terrain acquis par la municipalité précédente permet de construire une centaine de logements, des boutiques, une école et un bâtiment regroupant deux administrations. Le programme des constructions scolaires est frappant par son ampleur tant la ville est sous-équipée. Outre la rénovation des collèges et la construction d'un internat, le maire tient à doter la ville d'écoles maternelles et primaires de qualité, disséminées dans la ville, au centre comme dans le nouveau quartier. Par souci d'efficacité, il envisage de grouper ces chantiers et d'en faire des prototypes mis à l'étude par Sive et Roux.

 

En mai 1954, un plan d'urbanisme directeur est à l'étude. L'urbaniste Charles Delfante, diligenté par le MRU, a été choisi par Claudius-Petit. Son travail est à la hauteur de la tâche : de grande ampleur. La ville a été analysée par une équipe pluridisciplinaire de géographes, démographes, sociologues et géologues. Eugène Claudius-Petit, Sive et Roux avaient déjà réfléchi à quelques options que Charles Delfante reprend comme le déplacement vers la périphérie de la route nationale 88 (traversant la cité pour relier Saint-Étienne au Puy-en-Velay) et des usines installées au cœur de la ville. La délimitation des îlots insalubres par les enquêteurs du ministère constitue une autre donnée, divisant le centre ville en secteurs à rénover, mais aussi à acquérir. Enfin, après une discrète visite de Le Corbusier les 20 et 21 juin 1954, Delfante prend acte du site choisi pour développer le nouveau quartier puis se lance dans un vaste travail de synthèse. Situé au sud-sud-ouest, cet espace a été quasiment laissé libre de toute construction du fait de sa longue exploitation minière ; en son centre se trouve une carrière devenue décharge entourée d'un cirque naturel de collines.

 

Le maire est persuadé « qu’un pays qui reconstruit dans les formes du passé est un pays qui démissionne » (8). S’il veut renouveler la ville, il souhaite aussi construire une nouvelle organisation de la société et réactiver l’engagement de ses administrés. Il décide donc d’impliquer la population dans le projet afin que la greffe prenne car il est persuadé, comme il l’écrit à Maurice Thorez en 1946 « des difficultés que rencontrent les défenseurs des idées nouvelles d’urbanisme auprès de ceux qui pourtant, étaient les bénéficiaires de ces idées ; je veux parler des travailleurs, qui, mal informés, se dressent quelquefois contre les méthodes nouvelles de construction » .

 

A l'automne 1954, l'avant-projet du plan d'aménagement et d'urbanisme de la ville établi par Charles Delfante est pris en considération par le conseil municipal et il est parallèlement présenté aux habitants. Le 18 janvier 1955, il est examiné à Paris par le Comité national d'urbanisme où il reçoit un bon accueil. Ce projet cohérent, bientôt nommé Firminy-Vert, est volontairement emblématique du profond changement en cours pour extirper « Firminy-la-Noire ». Le maire a souhaité un projet global pour la cité, une nouvelle ville dans la ville. Il veut « opposer la ville fonctionnaliste à la ville industrielle, la ville de la modernité à la ville de la révolution industrielle ». Il entend en effet « bâtir la ville de l’hygiène, la ville de la lumière par rapport à la ville de l’ombre », bâtir aussi la ville des hommes et non plus celle de l’industrie .

 

Le nouveau quartier est désormais bien défini. Chiffrée à mille logements, l'opération du secteur industrialisé se compose exclusivement d'HLM de normes ordinaires, obtenues par le maire, malgré la nouvelle politique du ministère de la Reconstruction et du Logement qui privilégie les logements « à normes réduites » et délaisse le secteur industrialisé. S'y adjoint cependant un programme de cent logements dit Million, de moindre qualité.

 

Les architectes-urbanistes présentent un projet original avec de nombreux bâtiments aux formes diverses mais s’intégrant véritablement dans un schéma d’urbanisme réfléchi et volontaire. Une grande surface est allouée aux espaces verts, les piétons ne rencontrent que très rarement les rues et la circulation interne privilégie leurs déplacements. La répartition des types de logements s'échelonne du studio au F6, évitant ainsi toute ségrégation. Le plan prévoit un aménagement paysager et des plantations nouvelles respectant la végétation existante. Huit bâtiments bas de quatre étages s'adossent à la pente dans une composition axée sur un cours piétonnier et étagée de la Corniche aux abords du futur stade. Quatre autres immeubles bas se mêlent aux précédents, mais s'appuient, eux, contre la pente. Deux autres, une tour et un bâtiment haut de 17 étages chacun, placés au point le plus bas, se distinguent par leur hauteur et leur forme. On remarque aujourd’hui surtout la Tour Sive aux multiples facettes ouvertes sur l’extérieur. Deux groupes scolaires et deux centres commerciaux, répartis en haut et en bas de la colline, sont prévus dans une deuxième tranche de travaux. Eugène Claudius-Petit s’intéresse à tout ce qui va changer la manière d’habiter cette ville, ce quartier et ce de l’école maternelle au cimetière puisqu’il demande à Robert Auzelle, spécialiste du cimetière paysager, de réfléchir à un aménagement et à une extension du cimetière. Il donne son avis sur tout, du gros œuvre au mobilier, et tient à réaliser une opération à la fois exemplaire et remarquable ; il négocie ainsi avec EDF pour que soient enterrés les différents circuits électriques, il s’intéresse au chauffage urbain, système alors peu répandu, étudie le concept et fait voter son installation pour le nouveau quartier dans un objectif de confort, de service mais aussi de contrôle des fumées, nuisances rappelant trop Firminy-noir. Alimenté par le charbon de médiocre qualité qui n'intéresse pas les houillères, cet équipement va limiter la pollution atmosphérique et préserver la blancheur des futurs édifices.

 

Le maire veut changer sa ville et peut-être au-delà, en faire un exemple, le lieu d’une expérience très particulière. Dans le livret édité par les services municipaux, on rappelle aux nouveaux habitants de Firminy-Vert certaines règles de vie en commun ainsi que certaines spécificités du logement qu’ils ont « la chance » d’habiter.

 

Des conseils d’aménagements sont donnés. Le maire rejoint par sa volonté une des idées fortes de Le Corbusier : la fusion et la coexistence parfaite entre trois grandes activités de l’homme : le travail, la vie culturelle et les loisirs sportifs auxquelles ici s’ajoute la vie spirituelle.

 

En effet, début 1955, le maire veut confier un « stade des loisirs » et une maison des jeunes à Le Corbusier. Claudius-Petit pressent que l'architecte n'effraie plus ses concitoyens, les inaugurations récentes de Rezé et de Ronchamp ayant fait oublier la polémique entourant la « maison du fada ». Depuis sa visite de juin 1954, Le Corbusier a envisagé de placer le stade dans l'ancienne carrière ; il reprend cette première idée à l'été 1955 et projette d'y associer la maison des jeunes. L'ensemble réunit sports, culture et nature, et assure le lien entre la ville ancienne et Firminy-Vert. Ainsi se construisent peu à peu 1000 logements, deux écoles, un centre social ainsi qu’une maison de la culture. Elle est, comme ses consœurs, issue d’un mouvement lié notamment à la décentralisation culturelle prônée par Jean Dasté qu’Eugène Claudius-Petit rencontre plusieurs fois en 1956-1957. Elle est inaugurée le 18 septembre 1965 soit une dizaine d’années après la commande et un mois après la mort de son concepteur. Elle présente une architecture originale et une toiture unique « supportée par des câbles reliés aux deux façades latérales et sur lesquelles sont posés des panneaux de béton cellulaire revêtus d’une membrane d’étanchéité » (11). Ce système de câbles, très esthétique, a l’inconvénient d’être tributaire du poids exercé sur les dalles. Il fallait que le maire croit en cette architecture pour en accepter la construction alors que l’entrepreneur et le bureau technique s’y opposent car « les techniciens sont d’accord pour dire que l’étanchéité parfaite de la toiture ne pourrait être assurée » (12) . Eugène Claudius-Petit, ébéniste dans l’âme s’intéresse aux moindres détails et accorde une très grande importance au mobilier. Après la mort de Le Corbusier, il demande donc à Pierre Guariche, un architecte parisien de s’occuper de l’ameublement de la maison. Celui-ci semble suivre en partie les croquis laissés par Le Corbusier. Le gouvernement cherche par le biais du logement social, à revitaliser l’idéal républicain et faire entrer le maximum de personnes dans ce consensus. Le logement social fait partie intégrante de l’aménagement du territoire naissant dont Claudius-Petit fut un des promoteurs. Il peut être envisagé comme l’instrument d’un traitement républicain c’est-à-dire égalitaire du territoire : après le remembrement agricole (premier Plan) devait venir le temps du remembrement urbain (13). Mais les politiques souhaitent aussi faire entrer les Français dans une nouvelle ère, faite de croissance et de modernité. A l’échelle de la cité, Firminy-Vert se devait d’être le symbole de cette modernité et de ce volontarisme politique dans une région où la crise se faisait jour. Dans le second Plan (appliqué à partir de 1954) le logement social est inscrit comme un objectif prioritaire de modernisation du pays. Il devait, après les matières premières stratégiques et l’agriculture, être modernisé c’est-à-dire que la productivité de la construction devait être améliorée.

   

Claudius-Petit inclue donc la reconstruction urbaine dans une politique plus globale : à l’amont, l’aménagement du territoire et à l’aval l’abaissement des coûts de construction. Ces deux pôles sont bien liés dans une de ses notes personnelles : « L’aménagement du territoire n’est que technocratie si la rentabilité est seulement considérée ; il n’est qu’illusion et romantisme si la rentabilité est complètement méconnue ; c’est l’homme qui commande sa vie, ses besoins » (14).

   

La rentabilité exigeait un abaissement des coûts des travaux de bâtiment possible grâce à l’industrialisation du bâtiment c’est à dire le passage de la construction traditionnelle à l’utilisation d’éléments préfabriqués voire standards mais agencés de différentes manières. Et c’est notamment ce qu’espère mettre en place Claudius-Petit lorsqu’il fait de nouveau appel à Le Corbusier pour pallier les problèmes de logements présents encore à la fin des années 1950.

 

En effet, malgré les nouvelles constructions, la commune n’arrive pas à répondre à la pénurie de logements. Ainsi, 1100 demandes sont enregistrées en 1959 à l’Office Municipal d’HLM. Cette même année, le maire contacte Le Corbusier qui répond par l’unité d’habitation. Elle s’intègre à un plan d’extension de Firminy-Vert prévoyant la construction de 3500 logements et de leurs équipements scolaires, commerciaux, sportifs. Trois unités d’habitation de grandeur conforme sont alors envisagées. Le permis de construire de la première est délivré le 18 septembre 1964 ; Il prévoit 414 logements contre 337 à Marseille répartis en six grands types standardisés par l’utilisation du Modulor, le tout pour une surface de 27 859 m². La première spécificité de cette unité par rapport à ses consœurs est son mode de financement unique, celui des crédits de type HLM. Ceci conduit à des choix draconiens. La rue commerçante, les garages, les équipements annexes sont supprimés ; de même l’isolation phonique est très inférieure à celle de la Cité radieuse notamment, l’isolation thermique est rudimentaire… Le jour de l’inauguration de la Maison de la Culture, Le Corbusier pose avec Eugène Claudius-Petit la première pierre. A la mort de l’architecte, on fait appel à André Wogenscky pour assurer l’achèvement de l’édifice. Claudius-Petit insiste sur les fonctions sociales de l’unité d’habitation ; il l’avait déjà fait pour les autres bâtiments dans lesquels des aménagements à usage collectif sont insérés : la laverie automatique a ainsi fait la une de France-Soir. Mais là il insiste encore davantage : vingt-sept locaux collectifs sont prévus et c’est surtout l’ampleur de l’espace réservé à l’école maternelle, les trois derniers niveaux, qui impressionne. Le maire insiste aussi auprès de l’Education Nationale pour obtenir la nomination de personnels motivés. La lutte pour la non-fermeture de l’école ces dernières années et le combat aujourd’hui mené pour sa réouverture sont des moments très particuliers dans l’histoire de l’unité d’habitation.

 

Dès les premières années les habitants se divisent en deux clans : les mécontents et les militants. Parmi ces derniers certains ont eu un « coup de cœur » et sont parfois restés jusqu’à aujourd’hui. « Le contexte historique et culturel de l’après 1968 joue […] son rôle ; Il fournit de façon inattendue une population en partie « engagée » , dont le projet se coule parfaitement dans le cadre de l’ « utopie construite » de l’unité » (15) . A Firminy, si le cheminement pédestre est possible à l’échelle de cette portion de territoire urbain que constitue le quartier, l’automobile est souvent nécessaire pour se rendre au travail. C’est une des grandes critiques qui perdure depuis les premières années d’existence du projet à aujourd’hui. Si une grande part de la vie y est possible avec des commerces, des écoles, une maison de la culture… à proximité, les emplois sont peu nombreux aux abords immédiats. Dès les premières années de peuplement, le quartier divise ainsi ses habitants. Les détracteurs, souvent issus de Firminy, critiquent l’éloignement du centre ville et la disposition peu commune des appartements. Les enthousiastes, jeunes souvent, venus de toute l’agglomération stéphanoise et généralement motorisés trouvent un « terrain favorable aux expériences politiques, sociales, collectives et personnelles qui doivent « changer la vie » (16). A Firminy, comme ailleurs, le vide historiographique engendre l’enracinement d’idées préconçues, d’oppositions formelles souvent plus politiques et conjoncturelles que réfléchies et argumentées. Elles sont doublées d’évaluations partiales et partielles qui sont portées à leur encontre par des anciens habitants ou des habitants actuels. Ces derniers diffusent dans leurs récits écrits ou oraux une image idyllique ou au contraire cauchemardesque de ces logements, qui, là encore, est en bonne partie informée par leur situation actuelle.

 

Certains habitants ne quitteraient ce quartier pour rien au monde, leurs déménagements n’ont fait que suivre leurs évolution familiales passant d’un appartement à l’autre souvent dans le même bâtiment. Pour beaucoup en effet, Firminy fut au départ comme la révélation de ce que le maire recherchait, une nouvelle manière d’habiter. Certains parlent toujours de leur découverte de l’eau courante, de la cuisine équipée voire ouverte sur la pièce principale, de la beauté des façades recouvertes de panneaux de verre et de bois… Mais ce que les adeptes mentionnent par dessus tout, c’est la vie sociale du quartier, les enfants qui grandissent ensemble, la convivialité qu’ils ne pensent pas retrouver ailleurs. A Firminy comme ce fut le cas en de nombreux autres lieux, cette innovation urbaine fut critiquée et ce, très rapidement. Elle cristallisa les oppositions, les clivages d’une société en crise. Certains firent de ce quartier leur cheval de bataille, le présentant comme une erreur pour cette cité et cherchant à tout prix à en gommer les traces. Pourtant, ici comme ailleurs, il ne faut pas chercher à isoler ce quartier, à l’envisager comme un phénomène étranger à son contexte géographique et historique mais bien plutôt l’appréhender comme un « mode d’habitat inséré dans la logique des évolutions sociales et des politiques publiques » (17) à plus ou moins long terme.

 

Tous les habitants n’adhèrent donc pas et les oppositions perdurent, se cristallisent. D’ailleurs dans sa majorité même, Eugène Claudius-Petit ne fait pas l’unanimité. Fort de son expérience, il est sûr des pistes à suivre et dès 1956, son équipe lui fait sentir qu’il est peut-être trop décideur. Ainsi en décembre 1956 la situation est si difficile que dans un de ses courriers, le maire n’hésite pas à dire « le jour où Budapest reprend la lutte notre majorité limitée se divise sous les yeux amusés des communistes » (18). La situation ne semble pas s’améliorer puisque que quelques mois plus tard, Eugène Claudius-Petit doit écrire à son 1er adjoint qui refuse de le voir.

 

L’ensemble urbain devient plus que jamais objet politique en 1971 lors du changement d’équipe municipale et l’arrivée du communiste Théo Vial-Massat qui a d’ailleurs probablement trouvé un soutien chez les commerçants et petits propriétaires du centre-ville. Claudius-Petit essaye de montrer les changements dans son dernier bulletin municipal (19) mais le nouveau maire inscrit Firminy-Vert et le complexe Le Corbusier comme néfastes. Le projet de deux unités d’habitation supplémentaires est stoppé car la croissance de la population ne s’avérait plus celle escomptée ; la maison de la culture est fermée, le chantier de l’église abandonné. Cette politique de l’effacement et de l’oubli vise en premier lieu le commanditaire, Eugène Claudius-Petit dont le nom même est encore parfois tabou dans la cité. Il s’en faut de peu en 1983 pour qu’un gymnase ne soit construit à la place du chantier de l’église coupant le quartier et ôtant au centre civique, pivot entre le centre-ville et Firminy-Vert, sa lisibilité. Mais le projet établi par la municipalité n’avait pas pris en compte l’investissement et l’attachement d’Eugène Claudius-Petit à la ville, à ses idées et au projet de Le Corbusier. Il n’hésite pas à demander au Président de la République, François Mitterrand de classer le site. En 2005, après un arrêt de 30 ans, le chantier à repris et la présence d’Eugène Claudius-Petit n’est pas loin. Enterré à Firminy, sa tombe est orientée de façon à regarder la cité et son fils veille aujourd’hui à la réalisation de l’église avec enthousiasme. L’ensemble du site est aujourd’hui l’objet d’une remise en valeur avec une actuellement volonté de patrimonialisation bien en phase avec la politique de Saint-Etienne Métropole. La mairie actuelle joue cette carte et réhabilite donc peu à peu Eugène Claudius-Petit et c’est son successeur qui est aujourd’hui dénigré.

 

Eugène Claudius-Petit a voulu doter la ville d’un nouveau visage, en faire un modèle et une réalisation réussie de son expérience, des idées auxquelles il adhère. Il a une ambition qui semble dépasser la petite cité mais dont certains aspects se révèlent aujourd’hui. Il y a une volonté certaine de créer un nouveau paysage, un nouveau visage à cette ville, celui de la modernité. Il est frappant de constater l’esprit visionnaire du maire. Aux entrepreneurs qui lui font constater que le coffrage du bas-relief apposé sur le pignon sud de la Maison de la Culture n’est toujours pas fait et qui émettent la possibilité de couler le mur sans, il répond : « Je tiens d’une manière toute particulière à ce que cette sculpture soit faite car sa valeur sera plus tard inestimable surtout dans une ville où il n’existe pas grand chose de cet ordre » (20).

 

L’action globale, le bouleversement du paysage tant réel que mental que promeut Eugène Claudius-Petit à Firminy fait en tout cas écho au discours qu’il avait prononcé lors de l’inauguration de l’unité d'habitation de Marseille : « (…) cette unité d’habitation qui a tant fait parler d’elle, autour de laquelle les hommes ont tant discuté, qui a tant agité de passions, mais qui finalement, précisément peut-être à cause de cela, n’est indifférente à personne » ..., une construction de 1953 à 1956 avec la Thinet et beaucoups d(autres artisans locaux (des artisans du btp qui feront tous, jusqu'à la Métare, pour içi), la 1ere tranche étant l'espaçe Blachon... - 42 LOIRE.

 

Après la seconde guerre mondiale, un immense chantier s'ouvre en France dans le but de loger massivement une population démunie. Jusqu'au milieu des années 1970, cette période dite des « Trente Glorieuses » fut le terrain de nombreuses expérimentations architecturales et urbanistiques, fondées notamment sur les idées émises plus tôt dans le siècle par le Mouvement moderne.

 

Aujourd'hui, ces ensembles bâtis sont au cœur d'une autre actualité, liée à leur adaptation à l'évolution des modes de vie de notre société contemporaine. Cette question qui se posa dès la fin des années 1970 apparaît sous un jour nouveau, avec les premières démolitions dans les années 1980 et, plus récemment, le vaste programme de réhabilitation mis en place dans le cadre de la loi Solidarité et Renouvellement Urbain.

 

Après Les Grands Ensembles. Une histoire qui continue…, ce nouvel ouvrage, fruit de la collaboration entre l'École Nationale Supérieure d'Architecture de Saint-Étienne et l'Université Jean Monnet, apporte un éclairage nouveau sur cet héritage bâti, mettant au jour simultanément la question de son vécu et celle des acteurs engagés dans son édification. En réunissant quinze auteurs spécialistes de ce domaine, il s'agit de regrouper autant de points de vue, pour comprendre la diversité et la complexité des enjeux liés à la postérité de ce bâti. -

 

«St-Etienne, la place des grands ensembles dans l’histoire de l’habitat social français »

 

Saint-Étienne/Beaulieu, au sud-est de l’agglomération, sur le versant sud de la colline de Beaulieu, en forte pente et d’aspect semi-rural, la cité de Beaulieu est mise à l’étude dès 1950. Elle débute en 1953 et comprend 1 221 logements, un groupe scolaire et 35 boutiques. Des parrains prestigieux et l’élite de l’architecture sté- phanoise sont mobilisés pour ce premier grand ensemble local.

 

Tantôt les bâtiments suivent le dessin de la courbe de niveau 600, devenue rue Le Corbusier, tantôt ils s’installent perpendi-culairement à la pente, reliés à la rue par des passerelles ou de grands escaliers. A l’implantation exemplaire des bâtiments répond une maîtrise raffinée du végétal d’accompagnement, décliné selon les modes habituels aux squares urbains, avec une virtuosité étonnante dus aux talents de l’ingénieur des Services techniques de la ville, Jean Marc, associé à l’équipe de concep-tion dès l’origine de l’opération.

 

Le vocabulaire de l’art des jardins s’adapte au grand ensemble : les espaces sont découpés à partir des courbes de niveau et des allées, et caractérisés par un système de haies et de contre-haies (haies étagées doubles ou triples) constituées de troènes com-muns ou dorés, prunus, berbéris et buffets de laurier, et sont plantés d arbres rythmés et colorés (érables négundo et acacias), ou parfois fastigiés (la gamme d’arbres est d’ailleurs peu riche), selon un dessin géométrique et des alternances de couleurs. Ces espaces verts ne sont réalisés qu’à partir de 1964, après avoir été longtemps laissés en prairies fauchées. Cet état de fait, dû au départ à l’étirement des financements des projets d’espaces exté-rieurs, s’inscrivait aussi dans la logique de conception de notre ingénieur, qui pensait « qu’il était nécessaire de laisser vivre un groupe d’habitations avant de planter » – afin de reprendre notamment les chemins tracés par l’usage.

 

Cette réalisation révèle le décalage entre les réflexions et les savoir-faire architecturaux et paysagers et exprime quelques traits caractéristiques de la pratique paysagiste. Le festonnage des haies qui jalonne les espaces extérieurs rejoint celui des collines boca- gères surplombant les bâtiments. Il rappelle le site environnant et inspirera plus tard l’AUA et Alexandre Chemetoff pour la réhabilitation du quartier de Montreynaud.

 

Relevons que, sans l’action concertée des services de la ville et de l’office d’HLM, qui finança entièrement la réalisation des espaces verts, rien n’aurait été fait à cette époque, compte tenu du désintérêt pour cet aspect du projet des principaux responsables du chantier. « D’ailleurs, à cette époque, les architectes ne jouaient pas au paysagiste… ».

   

Beaulieu par son constructeur la Cimaise :" Entre les années 50 et 60, et suite à la seconde guerre mondiale, la municipalité stéphanoise a vu sa population passée d’un peu moins de 180 000 habitants en 1950 à plus de 200 000 habitants dix ans plus tard en 1960. Cette forte augmentation de la population pouvait s’expliquer par le fort taux de natalité de cette époque (baby-boom), mais aussi par l’afflux de travailleurs de la classe ouvrière venus dans la grande cité stéphanoise pour trouver un travail. De ce fait, la construction d’un logement sain pour chaque ouvrier était devenue une priorité absolue pour les élus qui considéraient à raison que cela était une condition vitale dans le cadre de ce grand développement. Pour ce faire, la ville a lancé dans les années 50 une vaste opération de construction de barres d’habitation dans la zone de Beaulieu, destinée à fournir un logement à une population grandissante.

   

Une barre d’habitation innovante

 

A l’époque, avec une majorité d’architectes, les appartements modernes construits possédaient des cloisons lourdes empêchant toute modification interne ainsi que des espaces de renvoi sombres et non ventilés ressemblant à des alcôves.

 

Mais à l’inverse, pour certains architectes précurseurs de la région à l’image d’Yves et Henri Gouyon, la modernité reflétait le gout de la clarté, de l’air, et du soleil, avec de larges horizons. Ainsi, ces derniers donnaient la priorité non pas aux façades qu’ils considéraient comme de simples élévations du plan, mais aux cellules d’habitations et à leur orientation. Dans cette optique, le bâtiment proposé par Henri Gouyon, qui était donc un partisan de l’espace ouvert moderne, supprimait les circulations et profitait de ce gain de place pour aménager de nouveaux espaces de vie communes. De plus, dans ces cellules d’habitations, les architectes ont tirés profit au maximum de la double orientation des appartements (ces derniers étaient traversant) avec par exemple l’accolement de balcons.

 

Conception et réalisation d’un quartier entier

 

Pour le projet de Beaulieu, l’on confia la conception ainsi que la réalisation des interventions aux agences Henri et Yves Gouyon puis Yves Gouyon et associés. Ainsi, dés le milieu des années 50, des études concernant Beaulieu II – La Marandinière furent conduites, suivis de la construction du bâtiment entre 1957 et 1959. S’en suivit Beaulieu III – Montchovet entre 1962 et 1964, surnommé la « Muraille de Chine », qui comprenait entre autres, une barre de type HLM haute de 10 à 17 mètres et longue de 270 mètres, avec 560 logements. Suites à ces constructions, l’urbanisation des vallées et collines du sud-est de Saint-Etienne continua jusque dans les années 70 avec les séries de la Métare I, II, et III. Au total, ce sont plus de 8 000 logements, pour l’essentiel de type HLM, qui ont été construits durant cette période.

 

Ces constructions ont également contribué à la création du parc de l’Europe et d’un boulevard circulaire qui servait de jonction entre les différents édifices et le centre-ville de la cité stéphanoise.

 

Ce film de commande a pour but de présenter les récentes réalisations des HLM en France. Comment faire face à la crise du logement en 1958 ? Sous forme d'une petite fiction, le propos est illustré par un jeune couple dont les activités illustrent de manière emblématique le problème de la pénurie de logement. Françoise assistante sociale ne peut se résoudre à cet état de fait...

 

Année : 1958 réalisation : Jean-Claude Sée, musique : Georges Van Parys.

 

Film présenté lors de l'exposition au Jeu de Paume "Photographies à l'œuvre, la reconstruction des villes françaises (1945-1958) " du 27/11/2011 au 20/05/2012 Château de Tours 25 avenue Malraux, 37000 Tours

 

Tous les films du fonds ancien, sont regroupés sur la Cinémathèque METL

 

www.dailymotion.com/group/fonds-ancien

 

Consulter la playlist des films du fonds ancien classés par dates

 

www.dailymotion.com/playlist/x34ije_territoiresgouv_cinem...

 

- Panorama de la reconstruction de la France dix ans après la fin de la seconde guerre mondiale, ce film de commande évoque les villes et villages français détruits puis reconstruits dans un style respectant la tradition : Saint-Malo, Gien, Thionville, Ammerschwihr, etc. ainsi que la reconstruction en rupture avec l'architecture traditionnelle à Châtenay-Malabry, Arles, Saint Étienne, Évreux, Chambéry, Villeneuve-Saint-Georges, Abbeville, Le Havre, Marseille, Boulogne-sur-Mer, Dunkerque.

 

Le documentaire explique par exemple la manière dont a été réalisée la reconstruction de Saint-Malo à l'intérieur des rempart de la vieille ville : "c'est la fidélité à l'histoire et la force du souvenir qui a guidé l'architecte". Dans le même esprit à Gien, au trois quart détruite en 1940, seul le château construit en 1494 pour Anne de Beaujeu, fille aînée de Louis XI, fut épargné par les bombardements. La ville fut reconstruite dans le style des rares immeubles restant. Gien est relevé de ses ruines et le nouvel ensemble harmonieux est appelé « Joyau de la Reconstruction française ».

 

Dans un deuxième temps est abordé le chapitre de la construction des cités et des grands ensembles, de l’architecture du renouveau qualifiée de "grandiose incontestablement". S’il est précisé "on peut aimer ou de ne pas aimer ce style", l’emporte au final l’argument suivant : les grands ensembles, c'est la campagne à la ville, un urbanisme plus aéré, plus vert."

   

Année : 1956

 

Production : les films Caravelle

 

Réalisateur : Jack Pinoteau (connu pour être le metteur en scène du film Le Triporteur 1957 qui fit découvrir Darry Cowl)

 

Scénario Alain Allioux

 

Musique : Henri Verdun

 

Images : Albert Militon

 

Montage : Edouard Berne

   

file:///C:/Users/u/Downloads/64931-firminy-vert-de-l-utopie-municipale-a-l-icone-patrimoniale.pdf

Ligne 86 - Arrêt : La Côte

Exploitant : SEMITAN

Réseau TAN/Naolib - Nantes

Ligne déviée en raison de travaux

Burbot are an important sportfish in the Wind/Bighorn River drainage, are a native species of special concern and an important cultural resource to the Eastern Shoshone and Northern Arapaho tribes. The proposed study will improve our understanding of burbot ecology and management, particularly in the upper Wind River drainage, and provide a scientific foundation for management decisions. Outcomes from exploitation studies can result in refining creel limits, length limits, season closures, and prioritization of management actions such as canal screening and habitat improvements. Further, exploitation studies can provide evidence for the need of conservation propagation programs. www.fws.gov/landerfishandwildlife/

USFWS Photo

. . . 3. 3. 2007 - this is the second day of a funeral ceremony in Bori for a High Class Woman. She died on 18. 1. 2007 at the age of 85 years. The ceremony will last for one week.

If you wonder why the quality of the pictures is a little less: these are no photographs - it all are snapshots of my videos! So sorry for the less resolution, but I think, they are worth to be shown.

_____________________________________

 

The Toraja are an ethnic group indigenous to a mountainous region of South Sulawesi, Indonesia. Their population is approximately 1,100,000, of whom 450,000 live in the regency of Tana Toraja ("Land of Toraja"). Most of the population is Christian, and others are Muslim or have local animist beliefs known as aluk ("the way"). The Indonesian government has recognized this animist belief as Aluk To Dolo ("Way of the Ancestors").

 

The word toraja comes from the Bugis Buginese language term to riaja, meaning "people of the uplands". The Dutch colonial government named the people Toraja in 1909. Torajans are renowned for their elaborate funeral rites, burial sites carved into rocky cliffs, massive peaked-roof traditional houses known as tongkonan, and colorful wood carvings. Toraja funeral rites are important social events, usually attended by hundreds of people and lasting for several days.

 

Before the 20th century, Torajans lived in autonomous villages, where they practised animism and were relatively untouched by the outside world. In the early 1900s, Dutch missionaries first worked to convert Torajan highlanders to Christianity. When the Tana Toraja regency was further opened to the outside world in the 1970s, it became an icon of tourism in Indonesia: it was exploited by tourism developers and studied by anthropologists. By the 1990s, when tourism peaked, Toraja society had changed significantly, from an agrarian model - in which social life and customs were outgrowths of the Aluk To Dolo - to a largely Christian society. Today, tourism and remittances from migrant Torajans have made for major changes in the Toraja highland, giving the Toraja a celebrity status within Indonesia and enhancing Toraja ethnic group pride.

 

ETHNIC IDENTITY

The Torajan people had little notion of themselves as a distinct ethnic group before the 20th century. Before Dutch colonization and Christianization, Torajans, who lived in highland areas, identified with their villages and did not share a broad sense of identity. Although complexes of rituals created linkages between highland villages, there were variations in dialects, differences in social hierarchies, and an array of ritual practices in the Sulawesi highland region. "Toraja" (from the coastal languages' to, meaning people; and riaja, uplands) was first used as a lowlander expression for highlanders. As a result, "Toraja" initially had more currency with outsiders - such as the Bugis and Makassarese, who constitute a majority of the lowland of Sulawesi - than with insiders. The Dutch missionaries' presence in the highlands gave rise to the Toraja ethnic consciousness in the Sa'dan Toraja region, and this shared identity grew with the rise of tourism in the Tana Toraja Regency. Since then, South Sulawesi has four main ethnic groups - the Bugis (the majority, including shipbuilders and seafarers), the Makassarese (lowland traders and seafarers), the Mandarese (traders and fishermen), and the Toraja (highland rice cultivators).

 

HISTORY

From the 17th century, the Dutch established trade and political control on Sulawesi through the Dutch East Indies Company. Over two centuries, they ignored the mountainous area in the central Sulawesi, where Torajans lived, because access was difficult and it had little productive agricultural land. In the late 19th century, the Dutch became increasingly concerned about the spread of Islam in the south of Sulawesi, especially among the Makassarese and Bugis peoples. The Dutch saw the animist highlanders as potential Christians. In the 1920s, the Reformed Missionary Alliance of the Dutch Reformed Church began missionary work aided by the Dutch colonial government. In addition to introducing Christianity, the Dutch abolished slavery and imposed local taxes. A line was drawn around the Sa'dan area and called Tana Toraja ("the land of Toraja"). Tana Toraja was first a subdivision of the Luwu kingdom that had claimed the area. In 1946, the Dutch granted Tana Toraja a regentschap, and it was recognized in 1957 as one of the regencies of Indonesia.

 

Early Dutch missionaries faced strong opposition among Torajans, especially among the elite, because the abolition of their profitable slave trade had angered them. Some Torajans were forcibly relocated to the lowlands by the Dutch, where they could be more easily controlled. Taxes were kept high, undermining the wealth of the elites. Ultimately, the Dutch influence did not subdue Torajan culture, and only a few Torajans were converted. In 1950, only 10% of the population had converted to Christianity.

 

In the 1930s, Muslim lowlanders attacked the Torajans, resulting in widespread Christian conversion among those who sought to align themselves with the Dutch for political protection and to form a movement against the Bugis and Makassarese Muslims. Between 1951 and 1965 (following Indonesian independence), southern Sulawesi faced a turbulent period as the Darul Islam separatist movement fought for an Islamic state in Sulawesi. The 15 years of guerrilla warfare led to massive conversions to

 

CHRISTIANITY

Alignment with the Indonesian government, however, did not guarantee safety for the Torajans. In 1965, a presidential decree required every Indonesian citizen to belong to one of five officially recognized religions: Islam, Christianity (Protestantism and Catholicism), Hinduism, or Buddhism. The Torajan religious belief (aluk) was not legally recognized, and the Torajans raised their voices against the law. To make aluk accord with the law, it had to be accepted as part of one of the official religions. In 1969, Aluk To Dolo ("the way of ancestors") was legalized as a sect of Agama Hindu Dharma, the official name of Hinduism in Indonesia.

 

SOCIETY

There are three main types of affiliation in Toraja society: family, class and religion.

 

FAMILY AFFILIATION

Family is the primary social and political grouping in Torajan society. Each village is one extended family, the seat of which is the tongkonan, a traditional Torajan house. Each tongkonan has a name, which becomes the name of the village. The familial dons maintain village unity. Marriage between distant cousins (fourth cousins and beyond) is a common practice that strengthens kinship. Toraja society prohibits marriage between close cousins (up to and including the third cousin) - except for nobles, to prevent the dispersal of property. Kinship is actively reciprocal, meaning that the extended family helps each other farm, share buffalo rituals, and pay off debts.

 

Each person belongs to both the mother's and the father's families, the only bilateral family line in Indonesia. Children, therefore, inherit household affiliation from both mother and father, including land and even family debts. Children's names are given on the basis of kinship, and are usually chosen after dead relatives. Names of aunts, uncles and cousins are commonly referred to in the names of mothers, fathers and siblings.

 

Before the start of the formal administration of Toraja villages by the Tana Toraja Regency, each Toraja village was autonomous. In a more complex situation, in which one Toraja family could not handle their problems alone, several villages formed a group; sometimes, villages would unite against other villages. Relationship between families was expressed through blood, marriage, and shared ancestral houses (tongkonan), practically signed by the exchange of water buffalo and pigs on ritual occasions. Such exchanges not only built political and cultural ties between families but defined each person's place in a social hierarchy: who poured palm wine, who wrapped a corpse and prepared offerings, where each person could or could not sit, what dishes should be used or avoided, and even what piece of meat constituted one's share.

 

CLASS AFFILIATION

In early Toraja society, family relationships were tied closely to social class. There were three strata: nobles, commoners, and slaves (slavery was abolished in 1909 by the Dutch East Indies government). Class was inherited through the mother. It was taboo, therefore, to marry "down" with a woman of lower class. On the other hand, marrying a woman of higher class could improve the status of the next generation. The nobility's condescending attitude toward the commoners is still maintained today for reasons of family prestige.

 

Nobles, who were believed to be direct descendants of the descended person from heaven, lived in tongkonans, while commoners lived in less lavish houses (bamboo shacks called banua). Slaves lived in small huts, which had to be built around their owner's tongkonan. Commoners might marry anyone, but nobles preferred to marry in-family to maintain their status. Sometimes nobles married Bugis or Makassarese nobles. Commoners and slaves were prohibited from having death feasts. Despite close kinship and status inheritance, there was some social mobility, as marriage or change in wealth could affect an individuals status. Wealth was counted by the ownership of water buffaloes.

 

Slaves in Toraja society were family property. Sometimes Torajans decided to become slaves when they incurred a debt, pledging to work as payment. Slaves could be taken during wars, and slave trading was common. Slaves could buy their freedom, but their children still inherited slave status. Slaves were prohibited from wearing bronze or gold, carving their houses, eating from the same dishes as their owners, or having sex with free women - a crime punishable by death.

 

RELIGIOUS AFFILIATION

Toraja's indigenous belief system is polytheistic animism, called aluk, or "the way" (sometimes translated as "the law"). In the Toraja myth, the ancestors of Torajan people came down from heaven using stairs, which were then used by the Torajans as a communication medium with Puang Matua, the Creator. The cosmos, according to aluk, is divided into the upper world (heaven), the world of man (earth), and the underworld. At first, heaven and earth were married, then there was a darkness, a separation, and finally the light. Animals live in the underworld, which is represented by rectangular space enclosed by pillars, the earth is for mankind, and the heaven world is located above, covered with a saddle-shaped roof. Other Toraja gods include Pong Banggai di Rante (god of Earth), Indo' Ongon-Ongon (a goddess who can cause earthquakes), Pong Lalondong (god of death), and Indo' Belo Tumbang (goddess of medicine); there are many more.

 

The earthly authority, whose words and actions should be cleaved to both in life (agriculture) and death (funerals), is called to minaa (an aluk priest). Aluk is not just a belief system; it is a combination of law, religion, and habit. Aluk governs social life, agricultural practices, and ancestral rituals. The details of aluk may vary from one village to another. One common law is the requirement that death and life rituals be separated. Torajans believe that performing death rituals might ruin their corpses if combined with life rituals. The two rituals are equally important. During the time of the Dutch missionaries, Christian Torajans were prohibited from attending or performing life rituals, but were allowed to perform death rituals. Consequently, Toraja's death rituals are still practised today, while life rituals have diminished.

 

CULTURE

TONGKONAN

Tongkonan are the traditional Torajan ancestral houses. They stand high on wooden piles, topped with a layered split-bamboo roof shaped in a sweeping curved arc, and they are incised with red, black, and yellow detailed wood carvings on the exterior walls. The word "tongkonan" comes from the Torajan tongkon ("to sit").

 

Tongkonan are the center of Torajan social life. The rituals associated with the tongkonan are important expressions of Torajan spiritual life, and therefore all family members are impelled to participate, because symbolically the tongkonan represents links to their ancestors and to living and future kin. According to Torajan myth, the first tongkonan was built in heaven on four poles, with a roof made of Indian cloth. When the first Torajan ancestor descended to earth, he imitated the house and held a large ceremony.

 

The construction of a tongkonan is laborious work and is usually done with the help of the extended family. There are three types of tongkonan. The tongkonan layuk is the house of the highest authority, used as the "center of government". The tongkonan pekamberan belongs to the family members who have some authority in local traditions. Ordinary family members reside in the tongkonan batu. The exclusivity to the nobility of the tongkonan is diminishing as many Torajan commoners find lucrative employment in other parts of Indonesia. As they send back money to their families, they enable the construction of larger tongkonan.

 

WOOD CARVINGS

To express social and religious concepts, Torajans carve wood, calling it Pa'ssura (or "the writing"). Wood carvings are therefore Toraja's cultural manifestation.

 

Each carving receives a special name, and common motifs are animals and plants that symbolize some virtue. For example, water plants and animals, such as crabs, tadpoles and water weeds, are commonly found to symbolize fertility. In some areas noble elders claim these symbols refer to strength of noble family, but not everyone agrees. The overall meaning of groups of carved motifs on houses remains debated and tourism has further complicated these debates because some feel a uniform explanation must be presented to tourists. The image to the left shows an example of Torajan wood carving, consisting of 15 square panels. The center bottom panel represents buffalo or wealth, a wish for many buffaloes for the family. The center panel represents a knot and a box, a hope that all of the family's offspring will be happy and live in harmony, like goods kept safe in a box. The top left and top right squares represent an aquatic animal, indicating the need for fast and hard work, just like moving on the surface of water. It also represents the need for a certain skill to produce good results.

 

Regularity and order are common features in Toraja wood carving (see table below), as well as abstracts and geometrical designs. Nature is frequently used as the basis of Toraja's ornaments, because nature is full of abstractions and geometries with regularities and ordering. Toraja's ornaments have been studied in ethnomathematics to reveal their mathematical structure, but Torajans base this art only on approximations. To create an ornament, bamboo sticks are used as a geometrical tool.

 

FUNERAL RITES

In Toraja society, the funeral ritual is the most elaborate and expensive event. The richer and more powerful the individual, the more expensive is the funeral. In the aluk religion, only nobles have the right to have an extensive death feast. The death feast of a nobleman is usually attended by thousands and lasts for several days. A ceremonial site, called rante, is usually prepared in a large, grassy field where shelters for audiences, rice barns, and other ceremonial funeral structures are specially made by the deceased family. Flute music, funeral chants, songs and poems, and crying and wailing are traditional Toraja expressions of grief with the exceptions of funerals for young children, and poor, low-status adults.

 

The ceremony is often held weeks, months, or years after the death so that the deceased's family can raise the significant funds needed to cover funeral expenses. Torajans traditionally believe that death is not a sudden, abrupt event, but a gradual process toward Puya (the land of souls, or afterlife). During the waiting period, the body of the deceased is wrapped in several layers of cloth and kept under the tongkonan. The soul of the deceased is thought to linger around the village until the funeral ceremony is completed, after which it begins its journey to Puya.

 

Another component of the ritual is the slaughter of water buffalo. The more powerful the person who died, the more buffalo are slaughtered at the death feast. Buffalo carcasses, including their heads, are usually lined up on a field waiting for their owner, who is in the "sleeping stage". Torajans believe that the deceased will need the buffalo to make the journey and that they will be quicker to arrive at Puya if they have many buffalo. Slaughtering tens of water buffalo and hundreds of pigs using a machete is the climax of the elaborate death feast, with dancing and music and young boys who catch spurting blood in long bamboo tubes. Some of the slaughtered animals are given by guests as "gifts", which are carefully noted because they will be considered debts of the deceased's family. However, a cockfight, known as bulangan londong, is an integral part of the ceremony. As with the sacrifice of the buffalo and the pigs, the cockfight is considered sacred because it involves the spilling of blood on the earth. In particular, the tradition requires the sacrifice of at least three chickens. However, it is common for at least 25 pairs of chickens to be set against each other in the context of the ceremony.

 

There are three methods of burial: the coffin may be laid in a cave or in a carved stone grave, or hung on a cliff. It contains any possessions that the deceased will need in the afterlife. The wealthy are often buried in a stone grave carved out of a rocky cliff. The grave is usually expensive and takes a few months to complete. In some areas, a stone cave may be found that is large enough to accommodate a whole family. A wood-carved effigy, called Tau tau, is usually placed in the cave looking out over the land. The coffin of a baby or child may be hung from ropes on a cliff face or from a tree. This hanging grave usually lasts for years, until the ropes rot and the coffin falls to the ground.

 

In the ritual called Ma'Nene, that takes place each year in August, the bodies of the deceased are exhumed to be washed, groomed and dressed in new clothes. The mummies are then walked around the village.

 

DANCE AND MUSIC

Torajans perform dances on several occasions, most often during their elaborate funeral ceremonies. They dance to express their grief, and to honour and even cheer the deceased person because he is going to have a long journey in the afterlife. First, a group of men form a circle and sing a monotonous chant throughout the night to honour the deceased (a ritual called Ma'badong). This is considered by many Torajans to be the most important component of the funeral ceremony. On the second funeral day, the Ma'randing warrior dance is performed to praise the courage of the deceased during life. Several men perform the dance with a sword, a large shield made from buffalo skin, a helmet with a buffalo horn, and other ornamentation. The Ma'randing dance precedes a procession in which the deceased is carried from a rice barn to the rante, the site of the funeral ceremony. During the funeral, elder women perform the Ma'katia dance while singing a poetic song and wearing a long feathered costume. The Ma'akatia dance is performed to remind the audience of the generosity and loyalty of the deceased person. After the bloody ceremony of buffalo and pig slaughter, a group of boys and girls clap their hands while performing a cheerful dance called Ma'dondan.

 

As in other agricultural societies, Torajans dance and sing during harvest time. The Ma'bugi dance celebrates the thanksgiving event, and the Ma'gandangi dance is performed while Torajans are pounding rice. There are several war dances, such as the Manimbong dance performed by men, followed by the Ma'dandan dance performed by women. The aluk religion governs when and how Torajans dance. A dance called Ma'bua can be performed only once every 12 years. Ma'bua is a major Toraja ceremony in which priests wear a buffalo head and dance around a sacred tree.

 

A traditional musical instrument of the Toraja is a bamboo flute called a Pa'suling (suling is an Indonesian word for flute). This six-holed flute (not unique to the Toraja) is played at many dances, such as the thanksgiving dance Ma'bondensan, where the flute accompanies a group of shirtless, dancing men with long fingernails. The Toraja have indigenous musical instruments, such as the Pa'pelle (made from palm leaves) and the Pa'karombi (the Torajan version of a jaw harp). The Pa'pelle is played during harvest time and at house inauguration ceremonies.

 

LANGUAGE

The ethnic Toraja language is dominant in Tana Toraja with the main language as the Sa'dan Toraja. Although the national Indonesian language is the official language and is spoken in the community, all elementary schools in Tana Toraja teach Toraja language.Language varieties of Toraja, including Kalumpang, Mamasa, Tae' , Talondo' , Toala' , and Toraja-Sa'dan, belong to the Malayo-Polynesian language from the Austronesian family. At the outset, the isolated geographical nature of Tana Toraja formed many dialects between the Toraja languages themselves. After the formal administration of Tana Toraja, some Toraja dialects have been influenced by other languages through the transmigration program, introduced since the colonialism period, and it has been a major factor in the linguistic variety of Toraja languages. A prominent attribute of Toraja language is the notion of grief. The importance of death ceremony in Toraja culture has characterized their languages to express intricate degrees of grief and mourning. The Toraja language contains many terms referring to sadness, longing, depression, and mental pain. Giving a clear expression of the psychological and physical effect of loss is a catharsis and sometimes lessens the pain of grief itself.

 

ECONOMY

Prior to Suharto's "New Order" administration, the Torajan economy was based on agriculture, with cultivated wet rice in terraced fields on mountain slopes, and supplemental cassava and maize crops. Much time and energy were devoted to raising water buffalo, pigs, and chickens, primarily for ceremonial sacrifices and consumption. Coffee was the first significant cash crop produced in Toraja, and was introduced in the mid 19th century, changing the local economy towards commodity production for external markets and gaining an excellent reputation for quality in the international market .

 

With the commencement of the New Order in 1965, Indonesia's economy developed and opened to foreign investment. In Toraja, a coffee plantation and factory was established by Key Coffee of Japan, and Torajan coffee regained a reputation for quality within the growing international specialty coffee sector Multinational oil and mining companies opened new operations in Indonesia during the 1970s and 1980s. Torajans, particularly younger ones, relocated to work for the foreign companies - to Kalimantan for timber and oil, to Papua for mining, to the cities of Sulawesi and Java, and many went to Malaysia. The out-migration of Torajans was steady until 1985. and has continued since, with remittances sent back by emigre Torajans performing an important role within the contemporary economy.

 

Tourism commenced in Toraja in the 1970s, and accelerated in the 1980s and 1990s. Between 1984 and 1997, a significant number of Torajans obtained their incomes from tourism, working in and owning hotels, as tour guides, drivers, or selling souvenirs. With the rise of political and economic instability in Indonesia in the late 1990s - including religious conflicts elsewhere on Sulawesi - tourism in Tana Toraja has declined dramatically. Toraja continues to be a well known origin for Indonesian coffee, grown by both smallholders and plantation estates, although migration, remittances and off-farm income is considered far more important to most households, even those in rural areas.

 

TOURISM AND CULTURAL CHANGE

Before the 1970s, Toraja was almost unknown to Western tourism. In 1971, about 50 Europeans visited Tana Toraja. In 1972, at least 400 visitors attended the funeral ritual of Puang of Sangalla, the highest-ranking nobleman in Tana Toraja and the so-called "last pure-blooded Toraja noble." The event was documented by National Geographic and broadcast in several European countries. In 1976, about 12,000 tourists visited the regency and in 1981, Torajan sculpture was exhibited in major North American museums. "The land of the heavenly kings of Tana Toraja", as written in the exhibition brochure, embraced the outside world.

 

In 1984, the Indonesian Ministry of Tourism declared Tana Toraja Regency the prima donna of South Sulawesi. Tana Toraja was heralded as "the second stop after Bali". Tourism was increasing dramatically: by 1985, a total number of 150,000 foreigners had visited the Regency (in addition to 80,000 domestic tourists), and the annual number of foreign visitors was recorded at 40,000 in 1989. Souvenir stands appeared in Rantepao, the cultural center of Toraja, roads were sealed at the most-visited tourist sites, new hotels and tourist-oriented restaurants were opened, and an airstrip was opened in the Regency in 1981.

 

Tourism developers have marketed Tana Toraja as an exotic adventure - an area rich in culture and off the beaten track. Western tourists expected to see stone-age villages and pagan funerals. Toraja is for tourists who have gone as far as Bali and are willing to see more of the wild, "untouched" islands. However, they were more likely to see a Torajan wearing a hat and denim, living in a Christian society. Tourists felt that the tongkonan and other Torajan rituals had been preconceived to make profits, and complained that the destination was too commercialized. This has resulted in several clashes between Torajans and tourism developers, whom Torajans see as outsiders.

 

A clash between local Torajan leaders and the South Sulawesi provincial government (as a tourist developer) broke out in 1985. The government designated 18 Toraja villages and burial sites as traditional tourist attractions. Consequently, zoning restrictions were applied to these areas, such that Torajans themselves were barred from changing their tongkonans and burial sites. The plan was opposed by some Torajan leaders, as they felt that their rituals and traditions were being determined by outsiders. As a result, in 1987, the Torajan village of Kété Kesú and several other designated tourist attractions closed their doors to tourists. This closure lasted only a few days, as the villagers found it too difficult to survive without the income from selling souvenirs.

 

Tourism has also transformed Toraja society. Originally, there was a ritual which allowed commoners to marry nobles (puang) and thereby gain nobility for their children. However, the image of Torajan society created for the tourists, often by "lower-ranking" guides, has eroded its traditional strict hierarchy. High status is not as esteemed in Tana Toraja as it once was. Many low-ranking men can declare themselves and their children nobles by gaining enough wealth through work outside the region and then marrying a noble woman.

 

WIKIPEDIA

ALEXANDRIA, VA: National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC), Sept. 16, 2021

 

Cyclist from the “Ride of Hope” arrives at NCMEC to commemorate the 26th anniversary of the inaugural ‘Ride’ to Washington, D.C. Our group of dedicated bicyclists' road an average of 80 miles per day (480 total) travelling through four states to raise awareness of missing children. Claire Edkins /NCMEC

Photo André Knoerr, Genève. Reproduction autorisée avec mention de la source.

Utilisation commerciale soumise à autorisation spéciale préalable.

 

Information coronavirus COVID-19

Rappel: A partir du 23 mars 2020, les TPG circulent selon l'horaire du samedi en semaine et selon l'horaire du dimanche le week-end. Les services nocturnes et les lignes Noctambus sont supprimés.

Les lignes transfrontalières connaissent des sorts différents: suppression, exploitation sur parcours suisse ou normale en fonction des douanes ouvertes.

 

Comme dans toute la Suisse, la porte avant et la première rangée de sièges des autobus et trolleybus ne sont plus accessibles aux voyageurs, à l'instar du Citaro 169 en service sur la ligne 5.

 

22051

Exploitant : Transdev Marne et Morin

Réseau : Navette Substitution SNCF Île-de-France

Ligne : Navette RER B

Lieu : Gare de Mitry – Claye (Mitry-Mory, F-77)

Lien TC Infos : tc-infos.fr/id/35316

exploited

Wales must exploit more EU funding opportunities – says National Assembly committee

 

Bilingual drama series Hinterland/Y Gwyll is an excellent example of how Wales can benefit from EU funding opportunities – according to the National Assembly’s Enterprise and Business Committee.

 

The Committee has conducted an inquiry examining a range of funding streams available to Wales for 2014-2020, building on the Committee’s previous work on Structural Funding and the EU’s new research programme Horizon 2020.

 

There is currently around €42billion (£33billion) available across the EU through initiatives such as Erasmus+, INTERREG, Creative Europe, and Connecting Europe. The Committee was keen to see how much priority is given to making the most of these opportunities in Wales by the Welsh Government and other organisations.

 

It concluded that Wales’s creative sector is leading the way in unlocking European funds, while there is also evidence that some parts of the Welsh higher and further education sectors are also performing well in accessing funding. Yet these are exceptions rather than the rule.

 

The Committee concluded that the over-emphasis on Structural Funds and Rural Development Programmes in Wales means that the significant opportunities provided by other funding programmes haven’t been properly realised.

 

The Committee heard that Scotland and Ireland have a much more joined-up strategic approach to applying for such funds and wants to see a coherent strategy for all EU policy and funding programmes, which can maximise engagement from Wales and create synergy with Welsh Government priorities and initiatives.

 

The Committee has also called for the establishment of an ‘EU funding champion’ to drive delivery and implementation of the Welsh Government’s new EU strategy.

  

Rhaid i Gymru fanteisio mwy ar gyfleoedd cyllid yr UE - yn ôl pwyllgor yn y Cynulliad Cenedlaethol

 

Mae'r gyfres ddrama ddwyieithog Y Gwyll/Hinterland yn enghraifft wych o'r modd y gall Cymru elwa ar gyfleoedd cyllid yr UE - yn ôl Pwyllgor Menter a Busnes y Cynulliad Cenedlaethol.

 

Mae'r Pwyllgor wedi cynnal ymchwiliad i'r ffrydiau ariannu sydd ar gael i Gymru ar gyfer 2014-20, a hynny ar sail ei waith blaenorol ar ariannu strwythurol a Horizon 2020, sef rhaglen ymchwil newydd yr UE .

 

Mae tua €42 biliwn (£33 biliwn) ar gael drwy'r UE drwy fentrau fel Erasmus+, INTERREG, Ewrop Greadigol, a Chyfleuster Cysylltu Ewrop, felly roedd y Pwyllgor yn awyddus i weld i ba raddau y mae gwneud y gorau o'r cyfleodd hyn yn flaenoriaeth i Lywodraeth Cymru a sefydliadau eraill.

 

Casglodd y Pwyllgor Menter a Busnes mai sector creadigol Cymru sy'n arwain y ffordd o ran rhyddhau cronfeydd Ewropeaidd, ond mae tystiolaeth hefyd bod rhannau o'r sector addysg uwch a’r sector addysg bellach yn perfformio'n dda o ran cael mynediad at gyllid. Mae'r enghreifftiau hyn yn eithriad i'r rheol, sut bynnag.

 

Daeth y Pwyllgor i'r casgliad bod pwysleisio'n ormodol ar Gronfeydd Strwythurol a Rhaglenni Datblygu Gwledig yng Nghymru yn golygu nad yw'r cyfleoedd sylweddol y mae rhaglenni ariannu eraill yn eu cynnig wedi cael eu gwireddu'n iawn.

 

Clywodd y Pwyllgor fod dulliau’r Alban ac Iwerddon ar gyfer gwneud cais am gyllid o'r fath yn llawer mwy strategol a chydlynol.

 

Felly, mae'r Pwyllgor am weld strategaeth gydlynol ar gyfer holl raglenni polisi a chyllid yr UE er mwyn gwneud y gorau o ymgysylltu o du Cymru ac i greu synergedd â blaenoriaethau a mentrau Llywodraeth Cymru.

 

Mae'r Pwyllgor hefyd wedi galw am i 'hyrwyddwr cyllid yr UE' gael ei sefydlu er mwyn gyrru strategaeth newydd Llywodraeth Cymru ar gyfer yr UE o ran ei chyflawni a’i gweithredu

 

arte.tv/hellfest

© Gwendal Le Flem

Photos child s piano 2014 | child s telescope 2014

Best website baby & children Care 2014 children Cute Baby Pictures Funny Net

@ www.yoummisr.com/?p=14205

 

Good enough due to bands not flyer art.

 

Exploitant : Transdev TVO

Réseau : R'Bus (Argenteuil)

Ligne : 2

Lieu : Gare d'Argenteuil (Argenteuil, F-95)

Lien TC Infos : tc-infos.fr/id/21907

Greater Manchester is taking a stand against child sexual exploitation with a groundbreaking new campaign.

 

Greater Manchester Police, Police and Crime Commissioner Tony Lloyd, health organisations, the ten local authorities and the voluntary sector are working together to target perpetrators and to educate young people and their carers on the warning signs of child sexual exploitation and how to get help.

 

Today (Friday 19 September), a new website has been launched – www.itsnotokay.co.uk – which contains information for children, young people, parents, carers and professionals on how to spot the signs of child sex exploitation and what to do about it.

 

The launch of the It’s Not Okay campaign follows a week of action across Greater Manchester to tackle child sex exploitation; a week which consisted of education and empowerment of young people, but also the detection and disruption of CSE-related activity, which saw three warrants executed and 19 arrests made across the seven days.

 

High visibility patrols have taken place in Manchester City Centre and surrounding areas, with over two thousand children spoken to by specially trained officers. During these approaches the young people were advised about CSE and keeping themselves safe. Those who were identified as being vulnerable were taken to their home or a place of safety.

 

The rest of the week saw a number of inputs with professionals in the hospitality sector and other industries, as well as multi-agency visits to 'premises of interest' across Greater Manchester such as pubs, off licenses and takeaways.

 

A series of school visits and educational lessons have also taken place, with a mixture of officer inputs and a viewing of award-winning and thought-provoking CSE production ‘Somebody’s Sister, Somebody’s Daughter’ by GW Theatre.

 

Police and Crime Commissioner Tony Lloyd is also writing to every high school and college in Greater Manchester to make them aware of the campaign and urge them to act if they are worried about a young person.

 

Assistant Chief Constable Dawn Copley said:

 

“Tackling the sexual exploitation of children and young people is an absolute priority for Greater Manchester Police and its partners. Protecting children is everyone’s responsibility and it is crucial that we work together to identify and prosecute individuals who prey on vulnerable children.

 

“Historically mistakes have been made; however, we are more determined than ever to get it right. It is crucial that the children of Greater Manchester understand what child sexual exploitation is, to recognise when this happening to them, and that it is NOT okay. We want children to know that they will be believed and that we will do everything in our power to protect and help them.

 

“I want to reassure our communities that we have, and will continue to hunt out offenders who prey on some of the most vulnerable in our society and urge anyone with any information or concerns to come to us - we will take action."

 

Police and Crime Commissioner Tony Lloyd said:

 

“Child sexual exploitation is a scourge on our communities and we all have a responsibility to protect our children and young people. Despite the recent media coverage around this issue it is still a hidden problem and it’s common sense for all agencies to work together with communities to eradicate it.

 

“By raising awareness and educating people about the warning signs of child sex exploitation we can encourage people to speak out and all play a part in keeping our children safe.”

 

Mike Livingstone, Chair of Manchester Safeguarding Partnership, said:

 

"This is a massively important issue and we shouldn't be afraid to talk about it. Child sexual exploitation is child abuse and it ruins lives.

 

"Children at risk don't recognise local authority boundaries and abusers often deliberately manipulate these - so it's vital that we work together across local authority areas to tackle it.

 

“Through Project Phoenix we're determined to do everything we can at a regional level to educate, prevent, and ultimately protect young people from this most serious form of child abuse."

 

Gary Murray, Crimestoppers North West Regional Manager, said:

 

“The independent charity Crimestoppers are delighted to support this campaign. Each year we receive over 2,000 pieces of information with regard to sexual offences and we would encourage anyone with information to contact the charity anonymously on 0800 555 111.”

 

For more information on child sexual exploitation and who to contact if you have any concerns that a young person you know may be a victim of child sexual exploitation visit www.itsnotokay.co.uk.

 

You can also report it to Greater Manchester Police by calling 101 or call Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111. If someone is in immediate danger, dial 999.

 

Ligne 1 - Arrêt : Manufacture

Exploitant : SEMITAN

Réseau TAN - Nantes

IT WAS A FUN APRIL 1ST at the SAINT STUPID DAY'S PARADE in SAN FRANCISCO. There is no other event in the world where folks gather to HAVE FUN and poke fun at the embedded horrid capitalist exploitation of the world.

 

Everyone came in costume...ADDA came as a REPUBLICAN BURNING IN HELL (which we all know in our deepest of hearts is where all REPUBLICANS and RIGHT WING A-0's will end up) ! i shouted MERRY CHRISTMAS to all the business people in the Financial District who stopped and stared in utter confusion.

 

Everyone gathered at the EMBARCADERO then proceeded to the WORKERS STATUE. There in honor of CLOWNS WITHOUT BOARDERS they put a 'red clown nose' on one of the statues! ADDA DADA got the crowd cheering 'HERO' for the guy who put the nose on the statue.

 

then to the PACIFIC STOCK EXCHANGE for the wonderful spoof...SOCK EXCHANGE...everyone exchanged socks & then tossed them in the air! One of ADDA DADA's Christmas SANTAs socks were found and declared a SAINT STUPID HOLY RELIC! (you so know i loved that)

  

Onward we went to the BANKER's HEART...the big, black marble rock in front of BANK OF AMERICA...where everyone tossed their loose pennies at the banker's black greedy heart! (This is just like the muslims in Mecca who toss rocks at the black stone which represents the devil..)

 

There was tons of good fun, great signs, good vibes, political statements, and incredible costumes

 

Good luck that the videos go on JIMMY KIMMEL LIVE tonight