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Origin and history

The Bourse du Travail de Calais, built between 1937 and 1939 by architect Roger Poyé, is located in the workers' district of Saint-Pierre on Place Crèvecoeur. This versatile building, both a trade union place and a covered market, is distinguished by its square plan (26 m wide, 29 m high) and its concrete facades covered with dark brown briquettes. The main elevation, adorned with an allegorical bas-relief of 3 x 8.50 m signed by the Lille sculptor R. Coin (representing Peace and Labour), dominates a brick entrance leading to a hall decorated with Marianne, also from Coin. The interior galleries, punctuated with bas-reliefs dedicated to industry and agriculture (by A. Marissal), lead to a union hall of 1,200 seats, decorated with a monumental fresco of the painters Max and Paule Ingrand celebrating the local trades.

The project, initiated as part of the major works of the 1930s, replaces a former washhouse and integrates in front of the courthouse and the church of the neighborhood. Designed for the Caliasian trade unions, the building was completed shortly before the Second World War, without official inauguration and then requisitioned by the Germans during the occupation. Its architecture, marked by Art Deco elements (vertical concrete bays, decorative staffs, zenithal lighting), illustrates the importance of workers' movements in 20th century urban planning. Partially restored in the 1990s (covered market in 1994, facades in 1998), the building remains a major testimony of Poyé's work and of Caliasian social life, mixing practical functions and republican symbols.

The union room, the heart of the complex, is marked by its vault illuminated by 18 staff niches and its stage frame decorated with the fresco of the Ingrands, signed at the bottom right. The entrances to the covered market, located at the corners of the building, are sheltered by concrete marquess lit with glass cobblestones, while the more sober side façades have metal windows replaced during restorations by PVC huisseries. The ensemble, protected by decree of 28 June 2000, embodies both a technical realization (innovative use of concrete) and a political will to enhance the world of work in urban space.

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