by its identification with a country such as Italy or France, political entities that are themselves treated as brands; their worth depends in a circular fashion on the exceptional items they produce and on the “art of living” they purportedly exemplify. The idea of building the image of a country as one would do for a commercial brand is relatively recent,36 having developed in parallel with the enrichment economy. The national image may find support in any statement (or “stereotype”) that is generally associated positively with the country being promoted. In the case of France, the historical and heritage dimensions associated with its monuments, landscapes, arts, foods, and perfumes can all be foregrounded (for example Versailles, Camembert, Veuve Clicquot, Chanel no. 5, Saint Laurent). But this insistence on the past has to be associated with the idea of creation and thus with “surprise and life,” so it won’t be “perceived as conservative.”37
This introjection of the past into the present – positing a sort of equivalence between a past considered from the vantage point of the present and a present considered from the vantage point of the future (that is, already viewed as past) – is the operation that traces the outline of “eternal France.”38 The promotion of the brand “France” presupposes close collaboration between “public authorities” and commercial brands – that is, between “the corporate competence of the State” and the businesses or groups that have an international base. This collaboration is manifested, for example, through operations such as “Christian Lacroix providing furnishings for TGV [high-speed train] lines” or “exporting the Louvre to Abu Dhabi,” in which the creation of the building was entrusted to the architect Jean Nouvel, who was charged with “updating our heritage.” As for the “targets,” they include above all “opinion leaders, business circles, experts in specific sectors, and journalists,” not to mention the “public at large” and especially (for “not all publics are equal”) “graduates of major institutions of higher education in the leading countries.”39 One of the principal aims of those who promote the “France” brand is to “influence the rankings” so as to maintain France’s place in “international comparisons,” in keeping with the requirements that stem from the generalization of benchmarking.40
Heritage creation
In addition to interest in exceptional items, a second factor in the creation of wealth is currently growing in importance. This factor is linked to various processes that can be called processes of heritage creation.41 While they affect real estate in particular, they can also be extended to other types of goods. Examples can be found in apartments situated in the historical center of a large city, in residences located close to monuments or sites viewed as exceptional (“the loveliest villages in France”), or in housing near zones categorized as “parks” that have been subjected to “protective” measures after an administrative process of selection. Such measures typically require that they be maintained “as before” – often after the location in question has been subjected to an attempt to reconstitute a more or less fictional past. This process has a significant economic impact, since wherever it occurs it leads to major price increases in the associated lands and property, and it has important repercussions for tourism as well. For example, in the historic districts of major cities one now finds real-estate agencies advertising themselves as specialists in “collectable properties.”
A concomitant phenomenon is what might be called made-to-order heritage creation. The patrimonial effect is triggered in this case when new establishments such as museums or cultural centers are created in a given locale or when local events (festivals, commemorations, and so on) are inaugurated. In addition, there are many cases in which some part of the built environment previously deemed lacking in interest and destined to be razed – often a former site of industrial production – is rehabilitated in view of housing artistic or cultural activities that are apt to give rise to “events” or “happenings.” Heritage creation, whether made to order or not, can be achieved without regard to the venerability of the site or the building; indeed, these may have been entirely reconstructed, reconfigured, or even newly created, for heritage creation is based primarily on a narrative that inscribes a place within a genealogy.
One example of direct heritage creation, now classic and widely imitated, is that of Bilbao, an industrial city in decline whose luster has been restored by the addition of a Guggenheim museum designed by Frank Gehry. This operation was part of a broader project undertaken in the late 1980s at the initiative of the Guggenheim board in New York: its aim was to set up a “global museum” housed at various sites, chiefly in order to extend and diversify the existing exhibit spaces, which the acquisition of new collections had rendered inadequate. The plan included the establishment of a vast museum devoted to conceptual and minimalist art in North Adams, a small Massachusetts industrial town in decline. But that project ran up against the tension between the local authorities’ insistence on highlighting local identity and honoring the workers in the former factory and the Guggenheim’s wish to promote worldwide art.42 Many similar cases can be found in France: for example, the efforts made by the authorities in Nantes to enhance the image of the city by reorienting its activities toward art and culture. Among other measures, the former site of the LU cookie factory has been transformed into a national theater, the Lieu Unique (Unique Place); an “artistic itinerary” has been set up along the Loire estuary, including a series of “installations” created by well-known artists; “events” such as exhibits or festivals have proliferated; and the establishment of luxury shops has been encouraged.43 An example resembling that of Bilbao even more closely is the Luma Foundation in Arles, which called upon the same famous architect, Frank Gehry, to build a museum on the site of former train repair workshops (closed in 1984) for the purpose of developing increased tourism.
In more general terms, heritage creation has become a technique of “territorial development,” with its experts in “local development strategies” who know how to “reveal” the “territorial agents” and to highlight their hidden “potential.” The instrument of choice is “relaunching,” which transforms a dormant legacy into an active heritage by stimulating the capacity of the actors to “appropriate history for themselves, even if that means transforming it.” The case of chestnuts in the Cévennes, once associated with poverty, is a good example: producers have taken steps to orient their product toward gastronomy and to protect the crop legally by a Protected Designation of Origin (Appellation d’origine contrôlée). These “heirs of history” use history with the goal of adding value to the goods and services they provide, so as to “specify” and to “differentiate products and services with respect to their competitors.” This systematic exploitation of the past via “relaunching” is what French experts call “patrimonial innovation.”44 This form of innovation often relies, as we have seen in the case of vineyards, on the reactivation of an ancestral figure whose ties with the site being highlighted may be more or less tenuous; the choice of a central figure and the way he or she is (re)invented play a major role in the success of the business, as Stéphane Gerson has shown in the case of Salon-de-Provence. This small city, a residential suburb of the industrial zone of Fos-sur-Mer, had little to attract tourists; owing to the decline of the petrochemical industry, it sought to give itself new luster, starting around 1975, by reactivating the only historical figure associated with its past: Nostradamus. The effort ultimately failed, quite probably because the local “great man”45 has never been the glorified subject – whether hero or villain – of a work of art or fiction that could have attracted interest – unlike Count Dracula, for example, whose presumed castle in the Carpathian Mountains draws visitors thanks to Bram Stoker’s novel and its numerous televised and film versions (such as Roman Polanski’s Dance of the Vampires).
The processes of heritage creation have affected not only ancient cities and buildings deemed historical, moreover, but also rural areas, especially those in which the passage from an economy of agricultural production toward a residential economy has been most pronounced and most advanced.46 These processes have involved villages, sites, and even entire regions. In these cases, things from the past, often falling into ruin, are – on the same basis as collectable objects