‘Calais government officials often say that the idea that guided the town’s project is its “generous poverty”. Could the act of building bring together the population, its local government representatives, the residents and technicians in the realisation of a democratic goal?’ (P. Bouchain) It’s at Le Channel that the cultural and participative worksite as a motor for social cohesion and appropriation of a place finds its most complete expression. To convert these old abattoirs into a national show venue, the agency, together with Francis Peduzzi and artist, François Delarozière, put in place a recovery strategy based on the mise en scène of the act of construction, the diversity of trades and know-how. A veritable “building site showcase” saw the light of day, it came together with recovered materials, was open to all and worked like a laboratory. The site meetings were held there during the day; Le Channel organised shows there during the evening. Any person active on the site (entrepreneurs, engineers, acousticians, students) was invited to share and pass on his specific knowledge in the form of a lesson. Emblematic of this surgical approach and symbolic of the architecture, ‘the crematorium that had been used to burn animal carcasses became a circus, the only place where animals are equal to man.’ (P. Bouchain) Its place is given over to a light structure, a brightly coloured modular marquee that can accommodate up to four hundred people. Built against the perimeter wall, four pavilions are lined up like so many ‘ecological’ manifestos: The “Pavillon des Plantes”, designed by Liliana Motta using the botanical samples; le “Pavillon de Lettres” (a play on words between letters and being), that artist Joël Ducorroy covered in car number plates bearing words and chosen by the people of Calais; the 3rd is the work of three young architecture graduates, built “the most economically possible”, against all forms of waste. The last is a tribute to the makeshift cabins lined up on Calais’ beaches, tolerated, but illegal (because of the laws that protect the coastline), suspended in legal limbo.
