Industrial heritage

In the course of the 20th century, Asnières was home to a number of major factories, leaving behind a legacy of emblematic sites that enrich the town's industrial heritage.

The site covered 7 hectares. The large vaulted concrete workhouse dates from 1925. In the centre, the former director's residence housed the administration offices and the infirmary. The concrete and brick boiler room completed the site with its large side bays and glass skylight.

This former Ford factory was built by Charles Knight between 1925 and 1929 on the site of the former industrial gas plant, Oxylithe. The manufacturing workshops were housed in the large vaulted all-concrete hall. Outbuildings of concrete structure with brick infill or brick cladding housed the maintenance workshops and parts stores. During the Ford era, car parts were manufactured here. Bought by Citroën in 1949, the factory retained the same activity: it produced turned parts (obtained by machining a single metal bar) and hydraulic components for shock absorber systems.

The former Citroën factory has been saved from demolition. The city has succeeded in preserving part of this industrial heritage site in order to transform this vast seven-hectare wasteland into a new business district with office buildings, shops and housing, not far from the future Grand Paris Express station. The aim is to replace the areas abandoned by the old factories with a new district of housing, offices, public facilities and green spaces.

The factory was founded in Asnières-sur-Seine in 1907 by Jules and Gaston Chausson. Initially called Ateliers Chausson Frères, it produced radiators for car engines. In 1924, the company name was changed to Société anonyme des usines Chausson (SUC).

In 1936, SUC specialised in car manufacturing (bodywork and heat exchangers) and became a major player in the French automotive industry. SUC then became a subcontractor for its two main shareholders, the Peugeot and Renault groups, assembling their utility vehicles. In 1945, the company began manufacturing coaches and within a few years had become the leading French manufacturer in this sector.

In the 1970s, the factory was at the height of its development: the group owned several plants in Asnières-sur-Seine, Gennevilliers, Meudon, Reims, Creil, Maubeuge and Laval. In the 1950s, the brand was chosen by the RATP to supply 273 APU 53 buses for Paris and its suburbs, starting in 1954.

With a rich industrial history stretching back almost a century, the restructuring of the Group in the 1990s was long and painful. It led to major industrial action, strikes, walkouts and production shutdowns, triggered by a logic of alliance between carmakers decided by the shareholders, followed by the company's filing for bankruptcy in September 1993. Between 1993 and 1995, three redundancy plans led to the permanent closure of certain production sites in the Paris suburbs.

The last plant in Gennevilliers closed in 2000 and the site was demolished in 2007 to make way for an eco-neighbourhood, a green corridor, and a new neighbourhood.

Pharmacist and chemist Hippolyte Mège-Mouriès (1837-1880) invented margarine in 1869 at the request of Emperor Napoleon III, who was looking for a long-lasting fat to supplement the daily diet of the sailors in his fleet. The principle was to reproduce the natural process of milk production by physico-chemical means. The first margarine factory was set up in Yvetot in 1910 by the engineer Jean Motte. Confident of the product's future, he named it Astra - the sky - a play on the last word of a Latin verse: "Be brave, child, this is how you reach the heavens".

In partnership with various complementary industries, Astra established itself in Asnières in the 1930s on a site in the Grésillons quarter, part of which had belonged to the family of the painter Édouard Manet. The main building - the cathedral - a forty-five metre high vaulted structure, was badly damaged by bombing during the Second World War, but Astra was reborn on a new site in the 1950s.

Today, the Matford company stands on the site of the Astra-Calvé factories. In 1934, Société Mathis and Société Ford joined forces to create Société Matford. Headquartered in Asnières, Matford was based at both the Ford plant in Asnières and the Mathis plant in Strasbourg. In 1944, the Ford/Mathis partnership was terminated, and Ford took over sole management of Société Matford.

The pharmaceutical laboratories of the Société Industrielle de Thérapeutique Appliquée were built by architects Delaire and Sage in 1928 on a corner plot. They were elevated in 1933 and extended in 1936.

The building bears witness to fine architectural research: wider bays, accentuated bands of white cement-coated concrete highlighting the pointed brick infill. Note the use of glass blocks in the staircase. The warehouses were in the basement, the loading dock on the ground floor in the courtyard, the laboratories on the first and second floors, and the offices on the third floor.

Probably built in the first decade of the 20th century, this former hosiery factory was home to Gabrielle Chanel's workshops from 1927 to 1934. The building was then used by various perfumers and cosmetics manufacturers: Millot, then Revillon and Grénoville.

All that remains of the old workshops is the brick facade within an iron core, with pilasters and an entablature. The bays are arranged in a ternary rhythm, alternating with a single bay.

Quai Aulagnier

At the end of the 19th century, the introduction of 5,000 volt three-phase electricity meant that a single factory could supply a radius of 8 to 10 kilometres. As a result, "le Triphasé", a limited company that supplied electricity to lighting companies, tramways and various factories, bought a five-hectare plot of land near Paris, in Asnières, on both sides of rue Novion and on the banks of the Seine, at a favourable price, in order to receive the coal and to have the water needed for condensation.

The buildings housing the generators, machines, pumps and purifiers were built in 1899, along with an administrative building and a coal depot on the banks of the towpath. Numerous alterations and new buildings followed, such as in 1905 and 1936.

During these years, the Triphasé company was replaced by Nord-Lumière, which was nationalised and transferred to Électricité de France by decree on 21 May 1946.

New developments followed, notably in 1947, and especially from 1959 with the construction of a large U-shaped building for offices.