Teaching by project
One of the aims of the course is to give students the ability to design and develop tools for co-activity and interaction between players in the historical heritage field, which are necessary for the transfer of knowledge between the various sectors concerned: historians, engineers and technicians, local, regional and national management communities, academic communities, companies, organisations contributing to the drafting of common scientific, technological and ethical standards at local, regional, national and international (UNESCO) levels.
To achieve this, the teaching team forges close links with non-academic circles and civil society.
Teaching by project
The 'project-based' teaching practised in engineering, art, architecture and design colleges enables students to acquire knowledge through experience. The approach encourages students to develop their autonomy, as well as their communication and collaboration skills. It involves working together to design a fictitious project, while respecting the stages involved in carrying out a real commission. The work culminates in the production of an object that is presented in public.
The 'tutored project' developed over three semesters involves producing a website on a theme relating to the history and heritage of technology. Students work in groups under the supervision of a tutor.
Between land and sea: maritime dunes
What is the scientific interest in maritime dunes as cultural landscapes characteristic of contemporary times and in a current context in which ecological issues, climate change and the preservation of coastal heritage are of vital importance?
Engineering works
Publication highlighting research on the works of engineers in cultural landscapes with the provision of information and compiled materials, with the aim of raising public awareness.
Cod. An encounter between technology and heritage
Addressing the theme of fish involves taking up a twofold challenge: that of understanding this object as heritage, and that of constructing a heritage discourse around an object that falls outside the framework of human invention or creation.
Company Towns
How can the study of different cases of company towns contribute to the understanding of the complexity of this phenomenon, which is relevant today in the context of a reflection on the industrial era that places company towns as a fundamental part of today's industrial heritage?
Railway heritage in the cinema
Based on a selection of films and documentaries related to the railway, the site offers an analysis of the landscapes and techniques of railway heritage through the prism of cinematography.
Material approaches
The course includes a large number of work sessions organised outside the universities. These take the form of meetings, visits and field observation exercises. In Paris, the sessions regularly take place at the Musée des arts et métiers and the Musée du Quai Branly; in Italy, at the Museo dell'industria e del Lavoro; in Portugal, at the Museu Nacional de História Natural e da Ciência (MUNHAC) and the Centro de Estudos de Cultura, História, Artes e Patrimónios (CECHAP).
Informal experiences
The course includes informal educational experiences in the form of transnational and transdisciplinary meetings (compulsory but not assessed):
- Webinars bring together research lecturers, practitioners and students from the two current classes (M1 and M2) to discuss a current research topic (e.g. Maintenance and repair; Reuse of materials; Remediation of industrial sites). The distance-learning sessions are open to all and are open access.
- The aim of the web cafés is to compare different ways of collecting documents, objects and places. In 2023, they brought together the curators of mining sites at the Berg Bau Museum (Bochum, Germany) and the Shoko Shuseikan Museum (Kagoshima, Japan), as well as curators from anthropological museums such as the Museo de Anthropologias de la Universidad nacional de Cordoba (Argentina) and the Museo del Pueblo de Asturias (Spain).
