Professor of sociology at Sciences Po Saint-Germain-en-Laye, specialist in urban policy, Renaud Epstein is the author ofWe arrived safely. A tour of France of large ensembles (Le Nouvel Attila, 160 pages, 18 euros), a book which presents a selection of postcards of large emblematic housing estates of post-war reconstruction. These postcards, which he methodically publishes on a Twitter account, come from his personal collection.
How did you come to collect postcards of large ensembles?
The first, I bought it at the end of my studies, when I was finishing my DEA thesis. I was doing a survey on the politics of the city in the Trois Ponts district, in Roubaix. I was having a coffee in the PMU bar-tobacconist and on the counter, I saw a display with old “Happy Easter” and “Merry Christmas” cards, all faded… In the middle, a postcard from the city. There was something dissonant there… I bought some. I sent two or three and kept one for myself. I continued to crisscross France’s large housing estates for twenty years, and each time I discovered a new city, I went in search of a postcard of the place. I found them most of the time, until the mid-2000s, at least.
In 2003, Borloo launched the National Urban Renewal Program (PNRU) which promised the – partial – demolition of several hundred neighborhoods. These cards which represented the large ensembles at the time of their delivery when they were brand new, all beautiful, suddenly took on a new function. They were no longer just memories but veritable archives of a world destined to disappear or at least to be radically transformed. I then tried to get involved in a more systematic collection by skimming the garage sales, collection which intensified when I discovered the Delcampe.net site, a sort of eBay for postcards.
In 2014, you start posting them on Twitter. Is it another step?
At the beginning, I didn’t have a specific project but the reactions were so numerous, the exchanges fruitful… I understood that the material on which I was working interested people far beyond the small circle that I touch with my publications. scientists. From there, I tried to find maps of all the neighborhoods that were the subject of an urban renewal project. I almost got there, but not quite because some, in tourist areas in particular, don’t have their postcards.
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