Timeline

Heritage classified

Key figures

Origin and history

The Rosiers Garden City is a low-cost housing district (HBM) built in Caen between 1908 and 1922, under the impetus of the Siegfried Act of 1894 and a second 1906 law promoting social housing. Initiated by Edmond Villey-Desmeserets through a HBM sponsorship committee, this project aimed to provide decent housing for workers and their families. Located on the north edge of the city, the triangular district, bordered by the streets of Rosiers, Saint-Contest and Les Lilas, escaped the bombings of 1944, preserving its original architecture in rubble, red bricks and tiled roofs.

The 31 dwellings, divided into two types (floor or square-floor workers' houses), included adjacent vegetable gardens, reflecting a desire for autonomy and quality of life. From 1993 onwards, the neighbourhood was depopulated because of the obsolescence of the dwellings, threatened with demolition despite its heritage interest. An associative mobilization, as early as 2003, resulted in a prefectural decree for the protection of facades in 2004 and a registration of historical monuments on 15 June 2007, blocking plans for destruction.

A rehabilitation plan, launched in 2008, provided for the conservation of 20 housing units (transformed into T3 and T5) and the construction of 10 new units on Rue des Rosiers, at a total cost of €4.4 million. The works, completed in 2013, allowed the inhabitants to return in October of the same year. This project was part of a broader dynamics of preservation of the Caennais HBM, many of which, like those near the CHR Clemenceau, were demolished in 2009, unlike the city of Rosiers, saved by its ranking.

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