The Strategy behind the French Relief Operations in Haiti and their Initial Results

Abstract

In the realm of tangible cultural heritage France is closely involved in reconstruction work in Haiti, collaborating closely with the Haitian authorities and local people. The French initiatives are all aimed at producing a contribution made up of medium-sized projects that will serve as sustainable examples in the whole field of culture, from the restoration of tangible heritage through to the training of professionals.

Approach and context

Between 26 April and 3 May 2010 the General Directorate of Heritage at the French Ministry of Culture and Communications seconded three consultants in the field of architectural heritage and museum collections. Their remit was to define the scope of French disaster response to the earthquake, following the guidelines laid down by the country’s president during his visit to Haiti on 17 February. The three were: Pierre-Antoine Gatier, Head Architect for Historical Monuments and President of the French Section of the International Committee for Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS France); André Delpuech, Chief Curator of Heritage, responsible for the Americas collections of the Musée du Quai Branly; and Christian Trézin, the author of this article. Another consultancy mission to Haiti, accompanying the French Minister of Culture and Communications, from 26 to 28 June 2010, was involved in preparing the restoration of an exceptional painting. The consultants were Pierre Curie, Chief Curator for Heritage, responsible for paintings in the Department of Restoration at the French Museums’ Centre for Research and Restoration, and Jean-François Hulot, consultant restorer.

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[  Guillaume Guillon-Lethière, Le Serment des Ancêtres (1822) after the first phase in the restoration process consisting of placing protective paper on the 20 metre linear tears before rolling it on a cylinder for transportation. ]

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[  Vestige of La Nativité by Rigaud Benoit in the choir of the Episcopal Cathedral of the Holy Trinity: Haitian market scene. ]

Several criteria were used for choosing the projects that France could support. The very first consideration for the consultants was that they should work closely with their Haitian counterparts, government representatives, foundations and non-profit groups, and take account of what was most urgent for them. Their remit was not to get involved in huge programmes. The conclusions that they reported back to the Minister of Culture and Communications involved practical programmes concentrating on objects of symbolic importance or ones that would serve as an example in some way. They were chosen because they were likely to play a key role in the restoration or long-term conservation of heritage. Projects were chosen also because they could be implemented within a reasonable timespan. The final and most important goal was to help consolidate the training of Haitian professionals.

Concern for coordination or complementarity with other French projects or the approaches of other countries, international institutions or NGOs working in Haiti was vital, second only to the action of the UNESCO International Coordination Committee for the Protection of Haitian Cultural Heritage. This is because other international initiatives converge in the domain of heritage being considered by the French Ministry of Culture and Communications. This is not the place to draw up an exhaustive list of projects and working groups. However, some of the main non-government initiatives for tangible heritage in which French professionals are involved include ICOMOS, the International Centre for the Study of the Preservation and Restoration of Cultural Property (ICCROM), the International Council of Archives, the International Committee of the Blue Shield, Archives Without Borders, Libraries Without Borders, Emergency Architects, the Association des Vieilles Maisons Françaises, CRAterre (involved in constructive culture and sustainable development) and the Compagnons du Devoir.

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[  This Gingerbread House in the neighbourhood of Bois Verna in Port-au-Prince is an example of a building with a wooden structure that has withstood the earthquake. ]

Some of the notable contributions of these groups include: the mapping and expert appraisal of work needed on the cultural heritage, especially churches and the Gingerbread Houses in Port-au-Prince; houses with iron structures in Jacmel; technical appraisal of the National Archive and Library buildings; rescuing heritage collections and artefacts; projects for restoring museum collections; the protection of mural paintings in Sainte-Trinité Cathedral; restoration work on the National History Park – Citadel, Sans Souci, Ramiers; and technical assistance offered to the Institute for the Conservation of the National Heritage (ISPAN).

The question of the coordination of French initiatives led ICOMOS International to send a consultant to Haiti, seconded to ISPAN to act as a sort of central reference person for programming and coordinating actions. As well as running its own projects, the General Directorate of Heritage of the French Ministry of Culture and Communications leads and coordinates a group composed of Haitian representatives in France and NGOs, to ensure that all information needed to promote coherence in cooperation is exchanged freely. But interaction with other international projects remains problematic.

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[  A facade on the Hotel Florita Street in Jacmel with its cast iron structure withstood the earthquake. ]

The French approach in Haiti: the example of built and movable heritage

The scope of the task means that choices have to be made, based on the intrinsic value of the heritage, its influence and its usefulness for professionals and the Haitian public. It was with this in mind that France, in constant dialogue with Haitian authorities, decided to be very realistic in its relief aid.

It should be remembered here how much interest France showed in restoring Haiti’s National Palace for the future. Over and above its symbolic importance for Haiti, the palace is the work of a Paris-trained Haitian architect, Georges Baussan. It was built between 1913 and 1922 and is the main building in Port-au-Prince’s Champ de Mars. Its design was inspired by the Beaux-Arts style, exemplified by the Petit Palais in Paris (built for the Exposition Universelle in 1900), and by both French and American neoclassical architecture of the eighteenth-century, such as the White House and the Capitol. The novel use of moulded, reinforced concrete for both structural and decorative purposes, including for the monolithic cupolas, reflects French tradition in the use of concrete (specifically the Hennebique system, patented in 1895). This classic architecture, using new models, is an example of adaptation to the Caribbean context and climate. Shade and ventilation are provided by the inner courtyards and classical porticoes forming galleries.

The design of the reconstruction project will come up against the question of reusing the remnants of the old building, and also of complying with anti-seismic building standards, a problem common to all restoration and rebuilding work in Haiti. French specialists in twentieth-century heritage restoration and anti-seismic treatment may be able to provide technical support.

Equally emblematic for Haitians and for democracy is Guillaume Guillon-Lethière’s painting The Oath of the Ancestors, dated to 1822. The artist, born in Guadeloupe to a colonist father and a slave mother, presented the painting to the young Republic of Haiti. It has since been kept in the Presidential Palace and symbolizes the historic meeting of the chief of Saint- Domingue’s mixed-race population, Alexandre Pétion, with General Jean-Jacques Dessalines, Toussaint Louverture’s black lieutenant. In November 1802 the two officers made a pact to drive out the French troops, shortly after Bonaparte’s decision to reintroduce slavery. This meeting marked the beginning of the process that led to the independence of Haiti in 1804. The painting was badly damaged when the National Palace collapsed and was extracted from the rubble by a team of French firefighters and then stored on the site of the French Embassy, where it was packed away for storage by experts. Despite being badly torn in some places, it will be possible to restore it. The work will be carried out by the Centre de Recherche et de Restauration des Musées de France (C2RMF), which restored it once before, in 1998. Given the technical difficulties, the canvas will have to be repaired in Paris in the spring of 2011, to make use of laboratory conditions that do not currently exist in Haiti. Then the picture surface itself will be reworked in Port-au-Prince. The whole operation will include Haitian restoration interns, which will give them the chance to hone their skills by observing the many cases dealt with by the C2RMF in France. There will also be an information programme, designed to keep the Haitian public informed and to raise awareness.

I will just mention in passing the situation of the collections of public and private museums, most of which have been affected to some extent by the disaster. Works that have been saved from the rubble have been placed in the archives, with photographic and audiovisual documentation, collections of works and architectural components in the Centre de Sauvetage de Biens Culturels (CSBC) in Port-au-Prince, under the auspices of the Haitian government and the Smithsonian Institution.

The condition of the murals in Sainte-Trinité Cathedral is also very serious. The cathedral belongs to the American Episcopalian Church, which is raising funds to restore this unparalleled example of Haitian art, and several international organizations are now involved. The only parts left standing are one side wall and the north transept. However, on three walls of the north transept is an almost complete Last Supper, by Philomé Obin, and the Baptism of Our Lord, signed ‘Castera Bazile, 20 March 1951’. With a fragment of The Nativity, by Rigaud Benoit, in the choir, these are the last preserved fragments of the remarkable cycle of murals that used to decorate the interior of the cathedral. The cycle showed the transition from the naïve secular art of paintings on easels to a monumental Christian art, reflecting the paintings that decorate Voodoo sites. Archbishop Charles-Alfred Voegeli commissioned the work from major modern Haitian artists, under the direction of Port-au-Prince’s Centre d’Art, a vital institution founded in 1944 by the American collector Dewitt Peters. The emergency intervention of Cultural Heritage without Borders and the National Association of Architects for Monuments of France made it possible to protect the ruins, with basic strengthening of the walls and the installation of covering before the rainy season began.

Help with the restoration of the Gingerbread Houses in Port-au-Prince and the houses with iron columns and balconies in Jacmel

Two typical examples of Haitian domestic architecture have, it should be said, generally resisted the earthquake fairly well. On the higher ground above Port-au-Prince a residential district grew up in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries that took advantage of land available outside the city centre to develop spacious plots. The whole area is built in the same neo-Victorian architectural style, comprising what is known as the Gingerbread Houses, generously adorned with wooden decorative elements such as lambrequins and framing. Each of the houses is surrounded by gardens and has a half-timbered framework filled with local brick. ICOMOS and ISPAN have worked together to list and note the work needed on almost 300 Gingerbread Houses in the Bois Veran district of Port-au-Prince.

The Jacmel houses are on the provisional list to become a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Jacmel was founded in the seventeenth century, then largely destroyed by fire in 1895 and rebuilt following the original layout with prefabricated houses mainly imported from Belgium and Britain. The architecture, composed of half-timbered structures and cast-iron columns, features homogenous volumes and shapes but also a wide variety of personal touches in the decoration added by the owners. A local residents’ association has been formed and will be active alongside ISPAN.

For these two groups of buildings similar projects have been planned, aiming to create pilot sites that would help with skill transfer to Haitian craftsmen working in different areas (carpenters, joiners, stonemasons etc.) which could help revive local firms making quicklime and bricks. However, current regulations in Haiti are an obstacle to this programme, because they make no provision for agreements with private owners of items of cultural heritage. In addition, there are still no guaranteed funds that would allow individuals to take out loans for restoration work. A final difficulty lies in the criteria for choosing which private buildings should receive national or international aid, and the failure of some of the owners to be convinced of the importance of this restoration work. The original plans and elevations still exist for one house in Jacmel that was once the home of the French Consulate. If the owner agreed and was willing to participate, restoration could be envisaged.

Restoring a major arts venue: the Le Triomphe cinema

The French Minister of Culture and Communications has expressed a serious interest in his Haitian counterpart’s project to restore the Triomphe multiplex cinema in Port-au-Prince and to develop a cultural reference project there. A technical brief on the restoration and management is currently under consideration, and the partnership is being piloted by the General Directorate of Artistic Creation.

The venue is remarkably well situated, on one side of the Champ de Mars, the main public square in Port-au-Prince. Also in the square are symbolic buildings such as Haiti’s National Palace, major cultural institutions, the French Embassy and the famous Rex Theatre, a bijou Art Deco venue built in the late 1930s and still in use until 2008. The Triomphe, built in 1970, was only slightly damaged by the earthquake of 12 January. Its main framework is of reinforced-concrete slab and posts, with concrete block walls, which suggests that the structure was designed to withstand seismic disturbances.

Urgent action needed for the future: training Haitians in Heritage

One of the basic ideas underpinning all the French Ministry of Culture’s projects is to train Haitian professionals to work at all levels, from the building site to the management of documents, from project creation to project management. This is true for the ministry’s own projects and for the guidance it gives in the coordination of groups it runs.

The Compagnons du Devoir (a French craftsman and apprentice system) is a case in point. When the logistics are right, about ten member of the organization will go to Haiti for twelve months to train Haitian professionals working on building sites. They are due to work on restoration in Port-au-Prince or Jacmel and perhaps, to begin with, on the National History Park – Citadel, Sans Souci, Ramiers, which became a World Heritage Site in 1982. They are familiar with the site because, as Raoul Peck, a former Haitian Culture Minister and current Director of the Femis French state film school (École Nationale Supérieure des Métiers de l’Image et du Son, Fémis), has written, the Compagnons du Devoir ‘not only rebuilt all the structures of the Park that are standing today, but also trained all the Haitian carpenters, joiners, plasterers, masons, etc. who worked on the Citadel for fourteen years’.¹

Hand in hand with the training offered by the Compagnons du Devoir, the Tools for Haiti operation, launched by the agency Snap-architecture, ships containers of tools donated by French companies. The tools are given to local craftsmen free of charge, under the supervision of the Haitian authorities.

ISPAN has also specifically requested that the training should include how to approach the question of a Haitian General Inventory of Cultural Heritage and capacity building for ISPAN itself. France has already helped Haiti in this domain. In 1997 Marc Pabois, the Inspector-General of the Inventory, and Pierre-Antoine Gatier led a UNESCO mission to Haiti and advised on training ISPAN staff to draw up a General Inventory. A practical session was organized in 1998 in Port-au-Prince and Cap Haïtien, but there was no long-term follow-up, so this skills transfer project remained at an embryonic stage. Currently ISPAN reports difficulty in using the documentation produced by research in Haiti since 1978, so today the training needs to be renewed and consolidated to help ISPAN make best use of the understanding it has acquired of Haiti’s heritage. As a first step, the three main ISPAN directors will spend a month in France in March 2011 to define the needs and the resources for creating a Haitian Heritage Inventory service. The project will then continue as long-term pilot field operations to train researchers, technicians and data managers, which is its main goal.

It should also be remembered that the General Directorate of Heritage has awarded or will award other grants for work placements in France, or international internships in the National Archives, for heads of archives and museums in Haiti, to foster professional exchanges and prepare training programmes. On 27 June 2010 the French Minister of Culture and Communications signed an agreement with his Haitian counterpart on cultural cooperation for 2010–15. The document provides the framework for a reconstruction programme for Haitian culture, including the conservation of architectural and movable heritage. It extends to the restoration of ruined libraries, repairing the Triomphe cinema as the emblem of a genuinely Haitian project, offering placements to artists and technicians in France and the education of professionals and the general public in Haiti. The agreement, which can be extended automatically, opens up the possibility of a long-term plan for technical support of Haitian institutions and professionals.

Footnotes

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   http://www.haitiwebs.com/archive/index.php/t-52104.html