Morlaix (Finistère). At the back of the old Morlaix tobacco factory, the public will be able to rediscover a Sistine Chapel from the industrial era: a dozen tobacco mills, reducing the leaves into powder for snuff, installed in 1871 and active until 1982. An exceptional piece of machinery that has stood the test of time and survived a fire in 1995. Thanks to the work of restorers Olivier Morel and Galateia Kriezi, this unique witness to the second industrial revolution is not only preserved and open to visitors, but it is also in working order, thanks to the help of the last workers who operated it.
The exceptional restoration work on this piece of heritage, classified as a historical monument in 2001, is part of a vast plan to rehabilitate an industrial wasteland undertaken by the Morlaix urban area. The reconversion of tobacco factories that emerged under the Ancien Régime, when Colbert created a monopoly on tobacco, experienced a first wave in the metropolises. Universities in Lyon and Toulouse; artistic and socio-cultural centers in Marseille, Nancy and Nantes; offices in Pantin, Orléans and even a retirement home in Bordeaux, during the 1990s-2000s, large cities found a new use for these large heritage wastelands freed up by the decline of the cigarette industry.
The tobacco factory, a marker of local identity since Louis XV
But few of these conversions leave room for the industrial past that animated the places, sometimes for centuries. In Morlaix, however, it was difficult to ignore the cigarette business, operated by the multinational Altadis until 2001: the main employer in this part of Finistère, the Breton factory was a marker of local identity since its installation under Louis XV. Architectural heritage – the factory was built by Jean-François Blondel, architect to the king –, the Morlaix Factory was the subject of a long conversion program, with an initial master plan adopted in 2002 by the Chamber of Commerce and Industry.
The inauguration of the Espace des sciences on July 2 marks one of the final phases of this transformation. During the 2000s, the Brest University Institute of Technology (IUT) and then the offices of the Morlaix Communauté urban area moved into the former factory. The ambition of the master plan established by Atelier Novembre was to open up the wasteland and make it a district in its own right in the city; the second phase aims to open up the vast courtyards of the factory, in particular by installing cultural activities. A publishing house, art library and dance school are gradually finding refuge within its walls. In 2021, three movie theaters are housed in the high ceilings of the workshops, accompanied by a theater and the offices of the Wart music label.
The tobacco mills, installed in 1871.
© Yves Quere
With an investment of nearly 10 million euros – financed for 4 million by the National Agency for Urban Renewal – the scientific interpretation center should become one of the major attractions of the new “district”, and aims to tell the story of the place. It is managed by a Rennes association, already manager of a first Espace des sciences in Rennes. Based in Morlaix, the association plans to put a toe in the ecosystem of the factory, but circumstances ultimately give it much more. “At the beginning, there was the project of a very small “science space”remembers Jean-Paul Vermot, mayor (PS) of the city. Then, in 2014, there was the “red caps” movement in Brittany, and in response the government released a program of future investments (PIA). What was supposed to be the little brother of the Espace des sciences de Rennes became the big brother.
Renovation of the factory and urban reorganization
By integrating the renovation of the factory into an urban recomposition process, the agglomeration has access to funding from the National Agency for Urban Renewal (ANRU), which now allows the development of a major permanent trail covering 3,600 square metres. The latter combines sequences devoted to fundamental sciences – a beautiful room devoted to Breton geology, another created by the artist Patrick Michel which immerses the visitor in the solar system – and developments closely linked to the history of the factory. Tobacco thus opens the visit, in an approach that is at once botanical, medical and economic.
In the large workshop room, the science of technology looks at social history in an assumed decompartmentalization of disciplines. On one side, the factory machines that were able to be recovered, and many of which still work, serve as a support for demonstrations on mechanics. On the other, the tour gives voice to those who have handled these machines since 1740, evoking child labor, female worker mobilizations, until the closure of the factory in 2004 and its consequences, in short scenes played by actors augmented by archival elements.
Promoting architectural, technical, scientific and social heritage: no dimension is neglected in this tour of the Espace des sciences, staged by the Maskarade agency. At the end of the wing occupied by the interpretation centre, the mill room is the highlight of the tour, where at certain times the visitor can see the cast iron pieces come to life as in 1871.
Restored heritage, the mills are also a living heritage: a local tea farmer is studying the possibility of grinding her leaves there, which are much less harmful than tobacco leaves. The industrial history of the Manufacture is perhaps not quite over yet…
