Road work by the city for 18 million euros were added

Today Chartres is a city under construction on its symbol, the Cathedral, Millennium pilgrimage site. Thousand years ago already, the Bishop Fulbert was Chartres radiation beyond the borders of the Kingdom, his teaching was adding to the attraction of the relics held, the veil of the Virgin Mary received by Charlemagne of the Empress of Constantinople. Raised in Reims in the Church, Fulbert arrived in Chartres in driving school before being elected in 1006 at the head of the diocese, one of the most important of the Kingdom, integrating the Blésois and the Vendômois. Man of faith and law, Fulbert was a great scholar of his time, Advisor to the King Robert the pious and arbitrator of feudal life. In 1020, the Carolingian Cathedral burns in a fire whose cities were regularly. Fulbert reacts very quickly. Seeking the competition up to the Court of England and the Denmark, he laid the foundation of the current Cathedral. In 1024, low church designated today as the crypt was completed. The high Church will be in 1037, nine years after the death of Fulbert, which guida construction alongside the contractor Berengar. This novel book disappears in turn during the fire of 1194, leaving room for the Gothic Cathedral completed to 1260 which remains today. But the low Church of Fulbert is still there, deepening the mystical atmosphere of the place. As in the past, it is dedicated to the home of the pilgrims when the Cathedral above is the location of the liturgy.

Intervention of patrons

To celebrate the Millennium Fulbert, associations and local communities are found around the monument in this year 2006 through many festivities, with time an international symposium on Fulbert and medieval Europe 12, 13 and 14 October (). Various restoration work and accommodation was undertaken to mark the Millennium. Filed since 2003 for restoration, three axial canopies of the Gothic choir were in place and inaugurated on September 8. High a dozen metres, they composed a famous triptych at the centre of the most beautiful set of stained glass of the 12th and 13th centuries, with a Madonna in Majesty in the world (Bay 100) surrounded by a (Bay 101) Aaron and Moses and Isaiah (Bay 102). Obscured by soot and micro-organisms, these stained glass Windows have been carefully décrassés alcoholic cotton, some glasses back on the right side, shot case deleted and replaced by silicone joints. Three workshops have worked on these valuable puzzles of glasses of color painted: stained glass France, small and Lorin-Hermet-Juteau.

This intervention is part of a general campaign that drags in length in the currently very tight budget context of heritage. Patrons are therefore intervened, aware of the appointment of 2006: the French Heritage Society, the society Sarlam (Group Legrand) and flour mills Viron of Chartres, in reports to the corporation of bakers, who once offered the stained glass of Moses and Isaiah!

Development of the baptistery

The announcement by the Prime Minister, on 15 September, special staffing for the heritage of EUR 100 million from privatization revenues guarantee 400,000 euros to the site of Notre-Dame de Chartres. "A good start will first help pay arrears to companies after two or three years of passage vacuum", said Patrice Calvel, Chief Architect of Historic Monuments, in charge of the Cathedral. If it is reassuring on the continuation of the work on the canopies, the art man takes no commitment on the Interior restoration of the vaults encrypted for a long time, referring to the regional administration (DRAC) for the calendar and financial programming.

Fortunately, the Rector of the Cathedral was not expected to finance its own funds and associations and the General Council grants planning of the baptistery in the crypt. Led by the architect François Sémichon, intervention comprised a new sequence on the route of the pilgrims: a wall of Glass moulded, colourful and blebby married the vault to delineate the liturgical space in the axis of the nave and House twelve banks in oak and the ambon near the baptismal font of the 12th century, the flow of pilgrims flowing on both sides. Artist Udo Zembock has worn blue pigments baked for this high canopy of 4.50 meters which symbolizes water and spoil the space of a mysterious glow. Bright points on the ground guide the Pilgrim invited back to the light and the nave. "Nothing irreversible", reassures François Sémichon, who did not touch the walls in agreement with the Chief Architect.

"Restore its radiance.

During this time, in the vicinity of the monument, the city moves. Arrival in 2001, the new municipality has launched a policy of work whose vocation is the reconquest of areas of the centre. "In the year 1000, the Bishop Fulbert was radiating Chartres in Europe;" "we will restore its radiance," explains Jean-Pierre Gorges, its Mayor (UMP), which wants to "bring cultural spaces in the heart of the city. Entrusted to the architect Bernard Reichen and Jacqueline Osty landscape, the development of the place of the sparse and boulevards is launched in 2003 and opened on 22 September, at the time of the great feast of light, which illuminates the monuments of the city and the edges of the Eure. A vast parking of 1,200 seats, expandable to 2,500, was dug on three levels and opens in all directions. The Chartrains rediscovering this site of six hectares, ripped apart three years to clean up the networks, rethink highways and provide a new place lively terraces of coffee and water jets. "This heart of city operation was one of the greatest archaeological sites of France with 80 researchers in searches", said Franck Masselus, Deputy Mayor responsible for finance, which evaluates to 32 million parking supported by Q-Park in public service delegation.

Road work by the city for 18 million euros were added. And today the renovation and modernization of the proscenium theatre, and, most importantly, the conversion of positions in Art Deco style hotel, designed in 1929 by Raoul Brandon, in media library on 5,000 square metres by architect Paul Chemetov. By also recipient of the film children of heaven, the city changes the multiplex of 11 rooms and 2,000 seats and the cap of a program of 26 made by Eiffage housing sale should provide funding for equipment.

Social housing neighbourhoods are not forgotten with the renovation of Beaulieu (40 hectares), Madeleine (90 hectares) and Rochèvres (27 hectares). Other projects are announced, including the redevelopment of the area of the station on 30 hectares and the creation of a new set of urban park and aquatic centre on the 220 hectares of the former air base: some 50 million euros to hire by the agglomeration during the next mandate.