Towards a redefinition of the protection of historic centres in France

In 1962, the French Loi Malraux on the safeguarding and valorisation of historic centres, has allowed to limit the systematic practice of renovation project of that time, reducing the number of demolition of groups of houses and the phenomena of specialization and spatial segregation, while launching urban regeneration projects. This instrument, has given life to the elaboration and adoption - in some homogeneous areas of strong historical and artistic interest, the so-called secteurs sauvegardés - of specific planning tools, founded on a deep knowledge of existing historical buildings’ character and characteristics, and taking into right consideration technical, legal and socio-economical factors. This law, resulting from an innovative and futuristic vision of patrimoine (which has thus extended its area of competence to the urban scale), while it has opened the way for simultaneous and synergistic contemplation of planning and conservation instances, it has also sometimes produced conflicting results at architectural scale: many stylistic restorations and falsifications, grafts of new on the ancient architecture, not always carefully screened in their modes of expression. After nearly fifty years after the first application of the 1962 law, at a time when France, is reflecting again on the future of its historic centres, this work intends to propose a critical analysis of the current situation and a reflection on the methodological aspects and applications related to the restoration project.