Industrial wastelands, laboratories, factories, disused plants... These rehabilitated sites are given a second life, often becoming avant-garde artistic spaces adopted for original events. This is the case, for example, of the Lefaux industrial wasteland, a former hessian sack factory in Pantin, just outside Paris, which hosts the Banlieues Bleues jazz festival and can hold 600 people. Or 104, the former Pompes Funèbres building converted into a space for artistic creation. And the much-anticipated Docks de la Seine: the conversion of the former general shops on the banks of the Seine to house the Cité de la Mode et du Design.
Out in the provinces, the former Lu factory in Nantes, now a showcase for 19th-century industrial heritage, and the Machines de l'Ile, a 580 m2 space in the former shipyards, have been taken over by builders of huge animated machines, such as this giant 45-tonne, 12-metre-high elephant.
In the Beaujolais region, there's the Dubouef hamlet, with 30,000 m2 devoted to wine, and in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region, the Belle de Mai wasteland, a cultural complex set up in a former tobacco factory.
