page_title: History of Le Havre
section_title: Le Havre after 1945
hierarchical_section_title: History of Le Havre / Le Havre after 1945
caption_attribution_description: Français&#160;: Photo aérienne du centre ville du Havre. Polski: Zdjęcie lotnicze centrum Le Havre
context_page_description: Le Havre was founded on 8 October 1517 as a new port by royal command of François I partly to replace the historic harbours of Harfleur and Honfleur which had become increasingly impractical due to silting-up. The city was originally named Franciscopolis after the king, and was subsequently renamed Le Havre-de-Grâce after an existing chapel of Notre-Dame-de-Grâce. The name of the American city of Havre de Grace, Maryland, is inspired by this name.
context_section_description: General Charles de Gaulle visited Le Havre on 7 October 1944. The city received the Legion of Honour on 18 July 1949 for the "heroism with which it has faced its destruction".
  In spring 1945, Raoul Dautry of the Ministry of Reconstruction and Urban Development entrusted the project to rebuild the city of Le Havre to Auguste Perret. The city council requested Brunau form part of the planning team, but subsequently he left a short time later due to creative conflicts with Perret. Perret wanted to make a clean sweep of the old structures and apply the theories of structural classicism. The material to be used for the building construction was concrete and the general plan was an orthogonal frame. Officially, the reconstruction was completed in the mid-1960s.
  The triangular axis of the Boulevard François I, the Avenue Foch and Rue de Paris led the traveller north, south, east and west of the town centre. The pre-war shopping precinct of Rue de Paris was redesigned with wide footpaths. A surrounding gridiron street system allowed for opened shopping areas, far from the dense and overcrowded crannies of the old. The Place de l’Hotel de Ville, the central square, was lined with 330 apartments around the edge in varying sizes and permitted a 1000-person occupancy. State funds also allowed for the building of high-rise apartments over six blocks leading into the residential areas. These new apartments possessed the latest innovations including central heating. The Avenue Foch stretched 80 metres wide, a little more than the Champs-Élysées in Paris. The finest apartments were built here facing the northern sunlight. Beyond the concrete formations of the inner township stretched the Saint-Francois neighbourhood, made up of red-brick residences and slate rooflines. Aplemont’s three-square-kilometre rebuild consisted of detached housing, double storey terraces and small apartment blocks. A church, community centre and shops also defined the new features. The inclusion of 7.7 square kilometres (3.0 sq mi) of green spaces with parks, gardens and woodlands added to the port’s urban renewal. This equates to an average of 41 square metres of green space per inhabitant, exceptional for any European city of its time. The Museum of Modern Art and the first House of Culture in the region were inaugurated in 1961 by André Malraux. The commune was enlarged through the annexation of Bleville, Sanvic, and Rouelles.
  In the 1970s economic difficulties due to de-industrialization saw, for example, the closure of Ateliers et chantiers du Havre (ACH) in 1999 and transformed the trade of the port. 1974 also saw the end of the ocean liner service to New York by the France. The Energy crisis precipitated an industry slump. Since then the city has embarked on a process of restructuring mainly oriented towards the tertiary sector: opening of the University of Le Havre in the 1980s, tourism development, and modernization of the port (Port 2000 project).
  UNESCO declared the city centre of Le Havre a World Heritage Site on 15 July 2005 honouring the "innovative utilisation of concrete's potential". The 133-hectare space that represented, according to UNESCO, "an exceptional example of architecture and town planning of the post-war era," is one of the rare contemporary World Heritage Sites in Europe.
caption: The rebuilt centre of Le Havre
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