National Archives Reception and Research Center – Wikipedia

The National Archives Reception and Research Center (Caran), built by the architect Stanislas Fiszer from 1986 to 1988 in the Marais, is with the Hôtel de Soubise and the Hôtel de Rohan, one of the buildings of the National Archives. It is a contemporary architecture building where the consultation room of the Paris Archives site is now located, as well as the French Ongastics Center, installed on the first floor, Jean Favier room. It is located at 11, rue des Quatre-Fil, in the 3 ^{It is} district of Paris.

The Parisian site of the National Archives had, until the opening of the Caran, of several reading rooms distributed on the site, which had been put into service as and when the readership increases. This situation was unsatisfactory and certain rooms did not present the guarantees of comfort and security required. As of his appointment as Director General of the Archives of France in 1975, Jean Favier decided to create a unique space for the consultation of documents, with the exception of maps and plans.

As early as 1976, Claude Aureau (architect of the National Archives between 1978 and 1986) developed a project for the construction of this new building. It consisted in extending the facade of the Dit de Boisgelin hotel by opening the services of the public on the Rohan gardens. But it was not until six years before this project was implemented.

In 1982, Jack Lang then Minister of Culture accepted the project to create the reception and research center for the National Archives (Caran), final name found by Jean Favier.

The establishment of this building required its author a number of constraints. The national archives are indeed in the safeguarded sector of the Marais. It was therefore necessary to build on the rue des Quatre-Fil, a facade likely to integrate between the Dit Boisgelin hotel and the alignment of the large Napoleon III deposits. The architect also had to provide visitors to the Rohan garden while respecting the safety of the archives.
Opening to the public was therefore at the heart of the program.

The architectural competition was opened in 1983. Claude Aureau, dismissed from the competition, chaired the jury which held in May 1983, three candidates: Stanislas Fiszer, Daniel Kahane and Fernand Pouillon.
At the end of the phase during which the candidates were asked to refine their project, Stanislas Fiszer was chosen. The Caran was its first foray into the field of archive buildings.

For this project, Fiszer is assisted by Grażyna Janiak, Jean-Yves Lemesle and Christian Schwinn ^{[ first ] , [ 2 ]} .

The management of the site was complex. Indeed, not only had to demolish old buildings, but also build a network of underground galleries that would connect the Caran to archive stores. At the level of the first basement, a network of underground galleries thus connected all the deposits.

Once the demolitions are completed, the construction of the new building was launched in March 1986.
The development of the new building then took two years.

The Caran consists of a main building, the “Grand Caran”, close to the big deposits, including collective equipment; and an annexed building the “small caran”, connected to the principal at the level of the first floor and reserved for specialized services.

Outside, Stanislas Fiszer harmonized the Caran with the color of the stone of neighboring buildings. In front of the facade on the garden, to testify to the history of the site, an old monumental door of the hangar of the machines of the national printing was installed.

Inside, the Caran has two main levels seven meters high, swarmed asymmetrically by mezzanines and thus forming four levels and two basements.
The reception hall is lit by the large bays overlooking the Rohan garden.
In the original design, an inventory room, located at the mezzanine level, made it possible to make available to researchers the research instruments of the national archives, public services of French archives, or even foreign archive services .

The reading room located on the first floor offered more than 300 places for the consultation of archive documents. All the circulation of documents is carried out in a rational way between deposits and the reading room in the best safety conditions.

On the third floor, the microfilms room offered access to 120 reading aircraft.
The Petit Caran housed the seals’ consultation room, the Center of Onomastics and the CNRS research unit devoted to Parisian topography.
After two years of work, Caran was inaugurated on March 23, 1988 by François Léotard, then Minister of Culture. Its services were opened to the public on June 6 ^{[ 3 ]} . On November 7, 2007, he welcomed his 100000 ^{It is} drive ^{[ 4 ] , [ 5 ]} .

Ten years after its opening, the Caran was subject to new redevelopment of reception and communication spaces from 2001 to 2005.
This work aimed to develop the storage surface of communication documents, to expand the document delivery window and to modernize the infrastructures of the reading room.

Finally, since 2013, and taking into account the transfer of part of the documents of the Parisian site of the national archives to the new site of Pierrefitte-sur-Seine, the consultation of the inventories is carried out on the second floor, in the same space as the consultation of original documents.
The three sigillography centers, onomastics and Parisian topography, welcome their researchers on the first floor.

1% of the cost of the work was devoted to the order of works of art specially designed to be integrated into the building.

Ivan Theimer designed the bronze relief of the four wires, embedded in the facade, in the axis of rue Charlot.

Adalberto Mecarelli, a sculptor and specialist in light games, created a very slender pyramid, placed under the input rotunda so that the paved shadows extend in space the meaning of the volume.

Pierre Gaucher, ferronier of art, worked on the four gates overlooking the street and on the garden of Rohan. Industrial manufacturing, they have been modified by assemblies of bars and nodes in flat iron.

Maxime Old designed the prototype of the solid wood seats in the reading room.

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  Bronze relief embedded in the facade of the Caran. Work by Ivan Theimer representing twice two characters surmounted by the Bayard horse.

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  The grids of the industrial manufacturing caran have been modified by assemblies of bars and nodes in flat iron. Work by Pierre Gaucher, ironworker of art (master of art 1996).

• 

  Adalberto Mecarelli Sculptor, a specialist in light games, created a very slender pyramid, placed under the input rotunda so that the paid shadows extend in space the meaning of the volume.

This site is served by metro stations Hôtel de ville, daughters of Calvary and Rambuteau.

• Bus 29, in the direction of MONTEMPOIVRE: Rambuteau archives stop. In the direction of Saint-Lazare: Archives Haudiettes stop.
• Bus 75, only direction Porte de Pantin: Rambuteau archives stop and Haudiettes archives.

Bibliography [ modifier | Modifier and code ]

• Christian Devillers, «  A Memory building: Stanislas Fiszer in the National Archives », Historical monuments , n ^O 154, December 1987 , p. 13–19 .
• Jean-Pierre Babylon, Of the Soubise Palais to the Caran: the seat of the national archives , Paris, National Archives, 1988 , 47 p. (ISBN  2-86000-139-5 ) .
• Claire Béchu ( you. ), The national archives, places for the history of France: bicentennial of an installation (1808-2008) , Paris, Somogy / Archives Nationales, 2008 , 381 p. (ISBN  978-2-7572-0187-9 ) .
• Directorate of the Archives of France, Archives: twenty years of French architecture 1965-1985 , Paris, National Archives, 1987 , 202 p. (ISBN  2-86000-128-X ) .
• Michel Thibault, Caran: twentieth anniversary , Paris, National Archives, 2008 , twelfth p. ( read online ) .

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