On November 24, 2009, the Grand Prix de l’urbanisme 2009 ceremony paid tribute to the winner François Ascher (1946-2009), Chairman of the Scientific and Strategy Committee of IVM since its foundation in 2000.
■ This event was preceded by a debate at the Carrousel du Louvre on the ideas and beliefs of François Ascher in favour of the link between research and urban action. A wide ranging portrait (french version) of François Ascher was delivered by Georges Mercadal, former head of the Construction Plan and Xavier Fels, General Secretary of IVM.

■ « François Ascher, ideas for the future », by Alain Bourdin (french version)
November 24, 2009, Grand Prix d’urbanisme 2009 award ceremony

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Publication of two books:

■ Organiser la ville hypermoderne [Organising the hypermodern city], éditions Parenthèses
A volume edited by Ariella Masboungi and published by the Grand Prix d’Urbanisme, on the oeuvre and writings of François Ascher. No respecter of persons, François Ascher co-opted decision-makers and professionals to equip this hypermodern city with a vision and purpose to guide its development, without yielding to the temptation of a form of dirigisme that has now had its day, for the city is not created by decree. But it can be steered through responsiveness to social aspirations, to the market and to the many agents that produce it.

■ L’âge des métapoles [The age of the metapolis] by François Ascher, éditions de l’Aube
Monde en cours collection. 392 pages.
It is through the analysis of society that the city can be understood and explained. The great urban areas of today – the metapolises – embody the new characteristics of the hypertext society. They are in a way its vanguard. In consequence, a new cognitive and ecological capitalism is emerging, in which the individual is king, able to “browse” between situations, information, beliefs, social contexts... amplifying social differentiations.
François Ascher’s texts – collected and prefaced by Alain Bourdin – provide insight into the broad processes that fashion the society and city of today. They approach the subject from different points of view – politics, food, day-to-day life – and deploy new metaphors, creating space for the unexpected which is one of the characteristics of our modernity.

A man of ideas and plans, he took scientific responsibility for the different working themes, and himself initiated and directed or codirected IVM’s major initiatives.
These included the Cerisy Colloquium – “the sense of movement” – where he extensively developed the notion of a Right to Mobility; the exhibition “Architecture on the move – cities and mobility”; touch and sound maps of Ile de France’s public transport systems for blind and partially sighted people; numerous international seminars, beginning with one on intermodality in China; the taxi festival which took place in Lisbon in 2007; and more recently the exhibition “The street belongs to all of us!”, which is currently touring the world, and the publication of the exhibition catalogue.
In recent months, he had prepared the programme of public hearings on “Climate change, urban mobility and Cleantech” and headed an initial exploration into ecological design.
His ideas about the links between mobility and contemporary societies will continue to inspire IVM’s activities.

As a theoretician of the hypermodern, he developed his analysis of that phenomenon in very different spheres, teasing out the connections between them: the city, food, politics (“The hypermodern society”, “The hypermodern eater”, ‘society is changing, politics too”).
His final work, “Clinical examination – journal of a hypermodern man” tests his theory of hypermodernity through his own private experience of illness.

As an observer of urban evolution throughout the world, he was one of the first to identify the emergence of the “megacity”, the mechanisms linking mobility and urbanisation, the city as a territory awaiting projects. The analysis of the structural transformations of contemporary society is at the core of his work. He developed the thesis of hypermodernity: not the end of modernity or of capitalism, or of the city, but rather their “radicalisation”, their “exaggeration”. More recently, he showed how ecology would open up possibilities for recovery through new “ecological materials” and developed the hypothesis of a Cleantech economy as a second driving force for a cognitive and environmental capitalism.

A man deeply involved in his era, he made it his duty to speak out on the ways of the world without complacency or fear of criticism. His recent positions on the Greater Paris project run counter to all the others, here as elsewhere casting light as a stimulus to action.
François Ascher was a Knight of the French Legion of Honour and an Officer of the Order of Merit.

A Professor at the French Institute of Urban Planning and its former director, François Ascher was a longtime adviser to the Construction and Architecture Plan (Infrastructure Ministry), to Datar and to the Ministry of Research; he created Europan, the European Federation for new architecture competitions, and Club Ville-aménagement, a forum of interchange between the big developers, the Government and Research. Straddling the worlds of research and of action, a great traveller, he set up networks and projects with foreign colleagues, the most recent being the “City on the Move Institute”, with the PSA Peugeot Citroën Group, to explore the relations between mobility and the city.

He was awarded the Grand Prix for Urban Planning for 2009 (french version). French minister Jean-Louis Borloo explains the reasons for the jury’s unanimous decision:
“The jury wanted to send a strong signal to the professional community to think about the financial, social and environmental challenges of the post-crisis period. I am one with the jury in paying tribute to François Ascher’s prescience on matters of governance, lifestyles, territorial development, the impact of globalisation and traffic flows on urban planning, the major role of mobility and the new technologies – the so-called Cleantech – in helping us tackle the challenges of sustainable development, all pioneering concepts which played a significant role in inspiring the projects for the Greater Paris programme and which open up avenues to explore for the future.”

He published extensively, and his works include books on cities and on urban planning (“Métapolis”, La République contre la ville”, “les nouveaux principes de l”urbanisme”, “les nouveaux compromis urbains”).
He also edited numerous collective works and contributed to many of them, as well as being a prolific author of articles and commentary in the mass media.

Demain la ville ? Urbanisme et politique, Éditions sociales, 1975;
Tourisme. Sociétés transnationales et identités culturelles, Éditions de l'Unesco, 1984;
Les territoires du futur. Datar/Éditions de l'Aube, 1993, (en collaboration) ;
Métapolis ou l'avenir des villes, Éditions Odile Jacob, 1995
Le logement en questions, Éditions de l'Aube, 1995 (direction)
Ville et développement. Le Territoire en quête de sens. Éditions Textuel, 1998 (en collaboration) ;
La République contre la ville. Essai sur l'avenir de la France urbaine, l’Aube, 1998
Quand les transports publics deviennent l'affaire de la cité. Parlons en avec la RATP, Aube, 1999 ( en collaboration) ;
La société hypermoderne. Ces événements nous dépassent, feignons d'en être les organisateurs, l'Aube, 2001-2005 nouv.éd.;
Les nouveaux principes de l'urbanisme. La fin des villes n'est pas à l'ordre du jour, L'Aube, 2001 –poche 2004 et 2008 ;
Modernité : la nouvelle carte du temps, l'Aube/Datar, 2003 (co-direction Francis Godard)
Les sens du mouvement. Modernité et mobilités, Éditions Belin, 2005 (co-direction S. Allemand et J. Lévy)
Le mangeur hypermoderne. Une figure de l’individu éclectique, Éditions Odile Jacob, 2005 ;
Examen clinique : Journal d’un hypermoderne, Editions de l’Aube, 2007 ;
La société évolue, la politique aussi, Editions Odile Jacob, 2007 ;
La rue est à nous... tous !, Éditions au Diable Vauvert, 2007, co-dir Mireille Apel-Muller ;
Les nouveaux compromis urbains : Lexique de la vie plurielle, Editions de l’Aube, 2008.
Effet de serre, changement climatique et capitalisme cleantech, Revue Esprit, février 2008