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Introducing Le Havre
Wandering around the streets of the seaside city of Le Havre, you could be forgiven for thinking you’d stumbled into a forgotten outpost of the Eastern bloc. All but obliterated by WWII bombing raids, the city was totally rebuilt by Belgian architect Auguste Perret after the war, and what emerged from the ashes of old Le Havre is something of a love letter to concrete: endless rows of breeze-block buildings and ruler-straight boulevards stretch off from the central square, which is dominated by Perret’s centrepiece, the 100m-high ‘Stalinist Baroque’ cathedral, and looks like something straight from the pages of 1984.
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While it’s probably not a place you’ll want to emigrate to, Le Havre is still worth a visit as one of the great examples of post-war planning. It’s a strange and oddly fascinating city – listed by Unesco as a World Heritage Site – and the sophisticated André Malraux fine-arts museum is among the best in Normandy.
Last updated: Mar 2, 2009
