Rebuilding farm buildings in Calvados

This book situates agricultural reconstruction in the Calvados département in the context of national debates. Beginning in the early 20th century with the notion of folklore, the debate took a very concrete turn during the Occupation, with a major study on the contribution of traditional architecture to agricultural modernization. At the time of the Liberation, Calvados was the worst-affected département in France in terms of agriculture, with almost 2,200 farms destroyed. Far from the reactionary propaganda of Vichy, the agricultural reconstruction of the département after the Liberation was carried out by the state according to a functionalist doctrine, and took on the aspect of "reasonable modernity" common to the whole of Reconstruction.
In Calvados, the Coopérative de reconstruction de l'Habitat rural (CRHR) was the driving force behind this policy. The transformation carried out during this period radically changed the landscape of agricultural architecture, separating the home from the farm and outsourcing product storage and processing. It was accompanied by a vast consolidation movement, and took place against a backdrop of accelerating modernization of farming practices, at a time when some were seeking to maintain "peasant agriculture" between collectivization and industrialization.
Today, the question of the future of this heritage is being raised, in the context of agricultural decline and suburbanization.