Meudon

See also: Meudon (homonymy)

Meudon is a common francilienne of the Hauts-de-Seine, located in the south-western suburbs of Paris, in France. It is famous for its peace (on the 990 hectares of the city, 520 are wooded: to see Forest of Meudon) and for its scientific activities. The Bois of Meudon is mainly in the south-west of the city. Its inhabitants is Meudonnais.

Toponymy

The old word Gallic dunos , castle, fortress, left its trace in the name of much of French cities even when those were Latin ized by the Romains. Generally, it is associated in the name of a Gallic chief as with Meudon precisely but also with Verdun or Loudun. Or in the name of Gallic god more venerated Lug as it is the case with Laon and Lyon whose two names derive from Lugduno . With Châteaudun, one notices that the name of the city known as thus twice the same thing the first Latin time and the second into Gallic/Celtic.

Geography

Villages and districts

As much of cities, Meudon is made up of various districts (Meudon-city, Bellevue, the Valley-Fleury, Low-Meudon and Meudon-the-Forest), which have each one its particular characteristics and environment.

The Valley-Fleury

The district primarily residential and is strewn with green areas, on the basis of the street of Arthelon (of the name of the river disappeared) where one finds the station of the RER C Meudon - Valley-Fleury, delimited today by the viaduct, and going up until the heights of the wood of Meudon, on the hill of Clamart.

Below the district is the viaduct of Meudon on which the railway line Transilien Paris-Montparnasse passes. Built in 1840 and a 36 meters height, it allowed the crossing of the valley of the Ru of Arthelon separating the hills of Meudon of those from Clamart, during the construction of the railroad connecting the Montparnasse station to that of Versailles. It is on this line that place had, on May 8th, 1842 in Meudon, the first serious accident of railroad, in which perishes the explorer Jules Dumont d' Urville.

Higher, one finds the sports complex Rene Leduc (name of the former mayor of Meudon) equipped with a football stadium, of a track of athletics, club of tennis of Meudon, a gymnasium equipped versatile rooms and municipal Olympic swimming pool, baptized in 2001 of the name of Guy Bey (former mayor-assistant in load of the sports in Meudon).

On the heights of Fleury an immense neo-gothic masonry is essential which faces the terrace of the Observatory. Built in the years 1800 by the rich person Duchess of Galliera to accommodate the orphans and the brothers of the Christian schools, the imposing residence shelters nowadays the “educational Village Saint-Philippe” managed by the Foundation of the Orphans of Auteuil which trains young people in difficulty.

With its 33  000 m ² of green areas in the middle of the district Valley Fleury, the Paumier park, of the name of its generous giver at the city, are a genuine bosky bower on the heights of Meudon. Decorated of a kindergarten with adventure playground, of and a table-tennis table basketball court, it offers a panoramic sight on the terrace of the Observatory and account of many remarkable trees of which catalpas and sequoias. It shelters moreover works of sculptors of reputation, Day Schnabel and François Stahly.

In 1997, the House of Nature is inaugurated. Structure of education to the environment of the community of agglomeration, the step is based on a simple principle: one protects what one likes. The House of Nature proposes teaching exposures and animations for the school ones, workshops for the children and the adults, of the debates and conferences. To that, are added a corner reading proposing of many documents on the environmental nature or problems and a botanical garden.

With the edge of the wood of Meudon, and being next to the complex of ONERA, the college Rabelais gathers the college and the only public lycée of the commune.

Low-Meudon

Historically the most popular district of Meudon. As of antiquity this district, located at the edges of the Seine in extreme cases of Issy-les-Moulineaux, accommodates briquetteries and other tileries which profit from the presence of clay for the raw material and from the river for the logistique.
Later, they will be the fishermen and the washerwomen who will settle at the edge of the Seine, before being dislodged by a factory of glassmaking at the time of the industrial revolution. This factory is resold with Louis Renault which installs there the factories which carry its nom.
The Forging mills of Meudon and the Slipper Establishments will follow, attracting a working population with the regional sources and varied nationalities.
Today the district is in full reorganization, as the will testifies it to some to rename it the Meudon-on-Seine . It opens with the companies and the buildings of residences. This reorganization in particular engaged following the destruction and with the refitting of the Île Seguin, to which Low-Meudon faces.

Meudon-the-forest

Rene Leduc, the mayor of the time, ensures himself in 1957 of the financial support of the minister of Construction, Jacques Maziol, to make arrange on the forest plate what was going to become Meudon-the-Forest. It is a 40 year old architect, Fernand Pouillon, which is harnessed with the task. The man already has with his credit the realization of many cities of residences in particular in Africa and Asia. It is while taking model on the stretches of water and the parks of Versailles that Fernand Pouillon intends to make Meudon-the-Forest “  a happy city, one of rare the great units where the life is still merry and where the humble ones are treated as kings   ”.

At the end of 2009, it will be served by two stations of the T8: Synagog and Meudon-The-Forest.

History

  • With approximately 4 kilometers in the south-west of Paris, this commune is established on hills and in the south of a loop of the the Seine. The archaeological sites prove that Meudon was populated since of the periods Neolithic S. the Gaulois named this place Mole-Dum (dun), the Romans called it Moldunum .

  • At the 16th century the cardinal Charles of Lorraine built in Meudon a castle, which was destroyed in 1803. The current remainders belong to a building set up by the Dolphin, wire of Louis XIV which burned at the time of the Guerre free-Prussian of 1870-1871.

  • Meudon is a residential commune served well by the rail network. In May 1842, fire of the Versailles-Paris train. At the time the doors were closed with key by the conductors, from where a terrible assessment: 55 dead. Consequently the doors had to remain open goes from there and this provision disappeared only in 2003. A French bishop pronounced a resounding homélie on this lesson that God gave to the arrogance men, and there saw an ire of the sky against the railroads. Alas for him, the same month, the the Vatican precisely obtained a pontifical train on the initiative of the pope Gregoire XVI. Among the victims was the admiral Dumont d' Urville and his family. Among the survivors, the large father of Marguerite Yourcenar (account in Files of North).

  • the establishments of Galliera, on the hill of Fleury, were based by the duchess of Galliera for the care of the elderly and the orphans. The buildings were built in 1885.

Demography

Administration

The Canton of Meudon includes/understands only part of the commune. The other part belongs to the Canton of Issy-the-Moulineaux-West.

Mayors of Meudon

Twinnings

Transport

The city is served by the stations:

Monuments and curiosities

  • the Museum of Art and History is installed since 1943 in the old house of Armande Béjart, which had been occupied with the XVIe century by Ambroise Paré. The contiguous park presents certain aspects of the sculpture of the years 1950-1970.
  • Near the Museum, a small public garden bears from now on the name of Anna Marly, which had composed the music and the Russian words of the Chant of the partisans.
  • Meudon shelters fall it from Rodin as well as the Villa of the Brilliances, which became a comprising museum of many works of the artist.
  • Meudon contributed to the development of the Aéronautique, by creation since 1877 of the Central Établissement of the Aérostation Militaire with the park of Chalais. It was the first laboratory of tests and research aeronautics in the world. The Hangar Y, built with the frames of a house of the World Fair of Paris of 1878, was the first hangar with airships in the World.
  • Of 1921 to 1981, the museum of the air was localized in Meudon until it moved with the Aéroport of Le Bourget.
  • One finds in Meudon a branch of the Observatoire of Paris (with the Solar tower of Meudon) founded in 1877 on the ruins of the Castle-Nine.
  • the wood of Meudon shelters the Standard Athletic Club temple of the Cricket in France.
  • Notre-Dame Church of the Assumption whose titular organist is Dominique Proust.
  • Allotment MR. R U of houses industrialized by the architect Jean Proven.
  • the career picturesque S, sites and scientists classified in 1986.
    Les careers are with the honor in 1989, when is held in Meudon the 2nd international symposium of the underground careers. Geologists, paleontologists, archeologists and historians carry out excavations to it. The exploitation of certain chalk careers goes back to the 18th century and continued until 1925. Mixed with clay, the chalk is employed in the cement and lime manufacture. Crushed, purified and gone up out of breads, it provides the Precipitated chalk for the composition of paintings and cements, of products of cleaning and cosmetics. The exploitation of chalk yielded its place to that of cultivated mushrooms until 1973. During the war, the careers were requisitioned to be transformed into aircraft factory, which was not never completed and ultimately constituted a abri.
    Colline of the Brilliances :
    Huit kilometers of galleries, measuring 3 to 15 meters in height and 3 to 4 meters broad, connected between them by imposing pillars on 4 to 5 levels, was thus dug in the hill of the Brilliances. In addition to the extraction of chalk, the galleries testify to an architectural prowess, terrestrial evolution at the tertiary era (cemeteries of fossilized sea urchins, discovered of a tooth of a semi-watery animal exposed to the Natural history museum of natural history….) and of geological phenomena (draperies, stalactites, gours, pearls of the caves and extremely rare clay forests).
    Aujourd'hui, these careers could be still adapted to other uses. An acoustic laboratory revealed in the careers an astonishing quality of listening worthy of religious sites or big rooms of spectacles…
  • Theo van Doesburg with built in Meudon its house workshop, which is always used as residence of artist.

Personalities

Seek and teaching

Many scientific public corporations and of research are also installed there (CNRS, ONERA and Observatoire of Paris).

See too

Internal bonds

  • Common of the Hauts-de-Seine

Notes, sources and references

Random links:Berville-on-sea | Lygodactylus angularis | Pierre-Louis Costes | Hector Munro Chadwick | Liz Wardley | Tequila