A new cityscape
The staging of the Olympic Winter Games Grenoble 1968 accelerated the construction of several buildings that boosted the city’s efforts to promote itself as the “City of the Alps”.
Grenoble is an important conference and business centre. The Alpexpo building in the south of the city hosts conferences and business gatherings all year round, including the MedFit Conference and the DATE conference and exhibition, the leading European event for electronic systems design and testing. Alpexpo was built as a bus station to ferry athletes and officials to and from the nearby Olympic Village before being converted to its current function. It has been granted “Patrimoine du XXe siècle” status, which was created to protect Grenoble’s 20th-century architectural heritage.
It is one of many buildings that were erected for the Games and subsequently repurposed, as planned. The three-storey Hotel de Ville in Parc Paul Mistral was a media centre for the Games’ test events and now serves as the city hall. A national and international artistic venue promoting the creation, production and exhibition of contemporary art, the MC2 was formerly the Maison de la Culture, which served as the main press centre during the Games. The building underwent six years of renovations before being reopened in 2004. Employing 57 people full-time, MC2 organises workshops, meetings and conferences across the Isère region.
The city’s Conservatoire, which provided media support services at Grenoble 1968, is another contemporary art, music and theatre venue, while the Hotel de Police, which was built to provide a base for the security forces policing the Olympic Games, is now the headquarters for Grenoble’s police force. With the exception of the Hotel de Police, these buildings have also been awarded “Patrimoine du XXe siècle” status, as has the Olympic Village.
Located in the south of town, the Olympic Village formed part of the city’s long-term development plans, as did the nearby Media Centre. Entirely pedestrianised, the Village has seen its population decline from more than 6,200 in 1975 to the current figure of just over 3,300. This decrease has been caused in part by people leaving for newer residential areas nearby. Plans for the renovation and renewal of the Village are in place, however, with EUR 191 million to be invested over a ten-year period. Like the Village, the Media Centre offers both social housing and apartments for sale.
The staging of the Games also accelerated the construction of the Grenoble Alpes University Hospital, which is now France’s 12th-largest hospital with 2,130 beds.