High-of-Hare

The High-of-Hare is a district of Nancy located at the North of the city, bordering with the communes on Maxéville (in north and the east) and Laxou (in the west). It is relatively excentré compared to the remainder of the city, in particular by its geographical location: indeed, Nancy consisting of a basin, this district is located on the plate.

History

The district was a long time known to shelter old the careers company Solvay.

In 1956, the municipality considers a urban development in this zone until now saved by the urbanization. The program envisages then: 3388 Housing S of which: 2797 social for the OPHLM (current Opac of Nancy) and 420 for the CILOF (real Company for the housing of the civils servant), but also a suburban district, two shopping malls (of 2050 m2 and 3380 m2), 4 school complexes, a church, sports equipment and cultural. The architect Bernard Zehrfuss is in charge of the project on December 9th, 1957 and the first stone is posed in March 1958. The Great unit, all in length, takes the form, above all, of two giant bars: the blue Cedar (400 meters, 15 levels, 917 residences) and the silver plated Lime (300 meters, 17 levels, 716 residences). The local press speaks then about the “longer bars of Europe”; they are nevertheless and still longest France. These bars are supplemented by three star turns at the ends, as well as a panoramic turn completed in 1971. The process of Estiot prefabrication is implemented thanks to a factory installed on the spot for the occasion. This massive industrialization of the construction and the use of the way of crane (crane posed on a rail) allow substantial economies.

The district reached: 16000 inhabitants in 1966. However, it loses its attractivity quickly: a report/ratio of the OPHLM shows that between 1970 and 1976, the totality of the residences changed tenant: the great unit became in fact a “house transit”. In 1980,800 residences are vacant. The unit is the subject then of a rehabilitation supplements 1981 with 1988, carried out by the architect Alain Sarfati.

It is popular quarters, classified Disadvantaged urban area by a decree of 1996.

Until 2007, this district had a zip code into 54100 and not 54000 as the remainder of the city. Regarded as stigmatizing by the inhabitants, this specificity was removed.

Quotation

“(...) But more than one district of extension, the High-of-Hare constitutes actually a satellite town of Nancy which should within twenty years reach 25 to 30.000 inhabitants. All the composition of this new center is attached to the traditional composition of Nancy: the two perpendicular main roads on which rest the Place Stanislas, and places it Carrière, the garden of the Seedbed and the Léopold court, was taken again with High-of-Hare. This composition is thus voluntarily rigid, severe even. Nancy, town of order and tradition, could not have supported a baroque unit with its doors” Bernard Zehrfuss (discussion with Joseph Abram in 1980, cité partially by François Chaslin, Dictionnaire of the architects , 1999, p. 743,)

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