Our history is written in culture, architecture
MILLAU, France – The Millau viaduct soars above the countryside of Languedoc, etched against the sky, a singular feat of modern engineering.
Tapered concrete pylons support a latticework of cables. The bridge soars 343 metres high. This road to heaven is paved with style. Designed by Norman Foster, the celebrated British architect, it opened in 2004. A new visitor’s centre mixes film and virtual reality, but mercifully little of the braggadocio of a big public works project in the United States.
It’s the tallest bridge in the world and perhaps the prettiest. These are the least of the superlatives, though, in a country that understands how to move around its 64 million people, most in far-flung small cities, towns and villages.
The purpose of the bridge was to relieve a bottleneck in north-south traffic. Construction took just three years and cost 400 million euros. For an enterprise this dazzling, it didn’t take that long or cost that much.
And the Millau viaduct is not that unusual here. Transportation — as well as architecture, design and culture — matters.
Lyon, a city of 506,000, has had a subway system for decades. Four lines connect with a network of trams, including two funicular railways on the slopes of the old city.
Lyon is the third-largest city in France, half the size of Ottawa.
Smaller cities, such as Avignon, encourage leaving cars outside the city in free parking lots served by free shuttle buses. Everywhere there are dedicated bicycle lanes.
Between the country’s cities, the TGV runs high-speed trains. Spain, Germany and Italy also have superb high-speed service, but no one does it better than France.
Reserve a long-term parking spot at the TGV station in Avignon, enter a surreal, bright station, and wait on a terraced platform. Take a seat in a well-appointed carriage. Voilà, Paris in less than three hours.
Another striking investment is in roads. Tolls on the thoroughfares sting, but the system is automated and the roads are smooth. If you aren’t in a hurry, secondary roads are scenic.
Once again, the old world instructs the new.
The investment continues in museums and theatres. Lyon boasts a new opera house, the venerable Musée des Beaux-Arts and several lesser museums. The newest is the futuristic Musée des Confluences, where the Rhone and Saône rivers meet. The collection — “the story of mankind,” it ambitiously declares — is dense but it remains an esthetic statement. Strangely, that’s almost enough.
Then, there are the libraries. In Carpentras, a regional centre, a new one has opened in a restored hospital. Portraits and landscapes hang on the walls, recalling old masters. A robot dispenses information. The furniture is spare and elegant. The mix of old and new media works.
On Christmas Eve, Carpentras mounted “un grand spectacle,” in the town square, starring a colossal marionette (operated by an acrobatic woman) and 10 minutes of fireworks. It cost money, but then, this country believes in culture.
As Canada contemplates its next 150 years, we should look less to our contested past, which shaded the celebrations of 2017, and more to the future. For the superb renovation of the Canadian history hall of the Canadian Museum of History and more modest projects, we are grateful.
But that’s just a beginning. Countries have to build libraries, galleries, concert halls, museums, railways and bridges. Canada has not nearly enough of them for the creative, prosperous society it is. Once again, the old world instructs the new.