{"id":200285,"date":"2025-05-27T13:55:34","date_gmt":"2025-05-27T11:55:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.voyages-d-affaires.com\/?p=200285"},"modified":"2025-11-19T18:05:43","modified_gmt":"2025-11-19T17:05:43","slug":"saint-etienne-creative-by-design","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.voyages-d-affaires.com\/en\/saint-etienne-creative-by-design","title":{"rendered":"Saint-Etienne, creative by design"},"content":{"rendered":"

Saint-Etienne could have been France's first ever European football champions. Glory be to the vanquished: this legendary defeat has played no small part in the enduring aura of the city and its Greens, magnificent losers for a whole generation of Frenchmen not yet accustomed to the taste of victory. But the city of Li\u00e8ge is not just a romantic representative of the F\u00e9d\u00e9ration Fran\u00e7aise de la Lose. Far from it. Driven by the Industrial Revolution, it has seen so much more, major firsts<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The first railway line in continental Europe in 1827, the first sewing machine in history in 1830, then later the first velocipede produced in France, the first sales catalogue extolling the virtues of Manufrance guns and bicycles: a sense of innovation runs through its veins. It's a creative DNA that, time and again, has led the city to become the first - and only - French city to join the network of Unesco creative cities of design<\/strong> in 2010. A select club of around thirty of the world's major cities, where 'Saint\u00e9' rubs shoulders with Berlin, Dubai, Cape Town, Montreal, Beijing and Seoul. Nothing less, but nothing that will come as a surprise to business travellers. As soon as you step off the TGV at Saint-Etienne Ch\u00e2teaucreux station, you can see this contemporary shift, symbolised by the vermilion-red buildings with their angular silhouettes on the Poste-Weiss block and the street furniture created by inventive young designers as part of the \"Bancs d'essai\" programme.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With more than 400,000 inhabitants in 53 municipalities, including more than 170,000 within the city walls, France's eleventh largest metropolis by population holds a special place in the country's industrial power. This key role is based on the richness of its subsoil and the art of knowing how to exploit it, from the engineers trained for two centuries at the Ecole des Mines to the graduates of the Ecole Sup\u00e9rieure d'Art et Design de Saint-\u00c9tienne (ESADSE). The heir to a long tradition of expertise<\/strong> in industrial design, dating back to the design of weapons, bicycles and other objects manufactured in the city at the time. A metropolis of minds and bodies, with a working-class soul forged by all those miners and \"manuchards\" who devoted their lives to the expansion of their beloved city.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"The
The Cit\u00e9 du design, on the site of the former Manufacture d'armes \u00a9 C. Pierot<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

These \" Golden hands <\/em>\"could no longer still working<\/em> \"As Bernard Lavilliers, a former \"Manu\" employee like his father, once sang. Gone are the bottomless pits or the production lines: on the rubble of its emblematic sites - the Couriot well inactive since 1973, Manufrance closed in 1980, the end of the line for the Manufacture d'Armes in 2000 - the city is rewriting its history. a new story<\/strong>. The former Manufrance head office has been partly transformed into a conference centre - the other used to house the offices of the Caisse d'Epargne - while one of the administrative buildings, La Verri\u00e8re, has been converted to host gala events.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The former Saint-Etienne weapons factory is being reinvented as the Cit\u00e9 du Design, a vast project launched by the town council in 2005. Even before its inauguration in 2009, it was on this former industrial and military site that a key edition of the Design biennial<\/strong>This is the fifth year for this event, which has been promoting Saint-Etienne's excellence all over the world (see box).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Design as a new weapon<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Inaugurated on the occasion of this pioneering event, the observation tower is still there - it can be used for cocktail parties for up to 40 people - and from its platform perched 31 m above the ground, it looks out over the whole of the city. a creative district still in the making<\/strong>. Covering more than 70,000 m\u00b2, the former industrial wasteland is home to the ESADSE campus and the Jean Monnet University Knowledge Centre for Innovation, the Grande Usine Cr\u00e9ative for innovative companies, a media centre, a coworking space, a cr\u00e8che and a primary school. A restaurant, the Fabuleuse Cantine, is also in keeping with the spirit of the place, using unsold organic and local produce to offer inventive cuisine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n