In 2022, EpaMarne celebrates its 50th anniversary and EpaFrance its 35th anniversary.
We could have looked back, as these establishments have left behind them beautiful, singular, different, sometimes uneven, conflicting achievements, which permanently mark a territory that is as endearing as it is attractive.
But we chose to look forward.
1972… 1987… 2022… 2072! Let’s project ourselves and let our imagination gallop.
In this, we will respect the spirit of the pioneers of the New Town: to develop is first to imagine. Combining rigor and poetry, seriousness and invention.
50 years old, 35 years old, age gives us distance and depth. It allows us to compare today’s present with yesterday’s future, the one we imagined at the time. They are similar: in some respects the original plan worked remarkably well, then it was adapted as time progressed and methods and concerns changed. He diversified. Frictions have enriched it. Today’s present and yesterday’s future are similar, yet so different.
Today’s present sometimes happily exploits what unfulfilled forecasts have bequeathed to us. An example ? In the old days of the Ville Nouvelle, wide roads were made and room was left to double them later, when the eternal growth of automobile traffic required it. It is this reserved space that today allows the lines of the Grand Paris Express to join the RER at Noisy-Champs, to then develop a district at the foot of transport, to trace cycle paths…
Today’s present, much less sure of itself than yesterday’s future, is one of blurred certainties. This is why, more than ever, there is a need to think about the future.
We know, it is perhaps the only certainty that remains to us, that the present of tomorrow will not be identical to the future that we imagine here and now. Perhaps it would be better to stop talking about the future in the singular: since the possibilities are so numerous, shouldn’t the word future always be used in the plural?
We must dream of the future, and the seeds we sow collectively will always bear fruit! Images, music and words, less than 3 minutes to sum it all up… we’ll let you discover the result, hoping that it will communicate to you our desire to work on it together.
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