Events and festivals Le Havre's festival calendar is punctuated by a wide range of events. In spring a ''Children's Book Festival
was recently created. In May there is the Fest Yves
, a Breton festival in the Saint-François district. On the beach of Le Havre and Sainte-Adresse there is a jazz festival called Dixie Days
in June. In July, detective novels are featured in the Polar room at the Beach hosted by The Black Anchors
. Between the latter also in the context of Z'Estivales
is an event offering many shows of street art throughout the summer supplemented by the festival of world music MoZaïques'' at the fort of Sainte-Adresse in August since 2010. In mid-August there is a
Flower parade which passes through the streets of the central city. In the first weekend of September the marine element is highlighted in the
Festival of the Sea. This is a race between Le Havre and
Bahia in Brazil. Also every November there is a fair held in the Docks Café. The Autumn Festival in Normandy, organized by the departments of
Seine-Maritime and
Eure, and the Region of
Normandy, runs from September to November and offers numerous concerts throughout the region as well as theatre performances and dance. In late October, since 2009, there is rock music festival which has been at the fort of Tourneville since the moving of the ''Papa's Production'' association site there. The West Park Festival, after its inauguration in 2004, has been held in the park of the town hall of Harfleur. Since 1 June 2006 a
Biennale of contemporary Art has been organized by the group
Partouche.
Cultural heritage and architecture Many buildings in the city are classified as "historical monuments", but the 2000s marked the real recognition of Le Havre's architectural heritage. The city received the label "City of Art and History" in 2001, then in 2005
UNESCO inscribed the city of Le Havre as a
World Heritage Site. • Church of Saint Vincent • Church of Saint François • Church of St. Anne • Church of Saint Marie • Chapel of Saint Michel d'Ingouville (15th century) • Graville Abbey, a monastery dedicated to Sainte Honorine, set in grounds on the northern bank of the
Seine River. • Presbyterian Reform Church (Église Réformée), 47 rue Anatole France, built in 1857, bombed in 1941, the roof and ceiling were rebuilt in 1953 by two architects from the famous
Auguste Perret office: Jacques Lamy and Gérard Dupasquier, The only building in town offering both ancient and the new Perret school of architecture in the same building. Holy Office each Sunday morning at 10.30.
Museums Five Museums in Le Havre have the distinction of being classified as
Musées de France (Museums of France) an official label granted only to museums of a high status. The five museums are:
Museum of modern art André Malraux – MuMa The most important of the five,
Museum Malraux was built in 1955 by the
Atelier LWD and was opened in 1961 by
André Malraux. This museum houses a collection of art from the late
Middle Ages until the 20th century. The impressionist paintings collections are the second most extensive in France after those of the
Orsay Museum in Paris. The museum houses some paintings of
Claude Monet,
Auguste Renoir,
Raoul Dufy,
Edgar Degas.
Musée du Vieux Havre (Museum of old Le Havre) A Museum dedicated to the history of Le Havre with many objects from the
Ancien Régime and the 19th century: furniture, old maps, statues, and paintings. ====
Musée d'histoire naturelle (Museum of Natural History)==== Founded in 1881 but heavily damaged during World War II, the Museum of Natural History is housed in Le Havre's former law courts, built in the mid-18th century; the façade and monumental staircase are listed as historical monuments. The museum houses mineralogy, zoology, ornithology, palaeontology and prehistory departments as well as 8,000 early 19th-century paintings from the collection of local naturalist and traveller
Charles-Alexandre Lesueur (1778–1846). The museum was destroyed during Allied bombings on 5 September 1944. The library was lost, along with its collections of photographs, scientific instruments and archives. The mineral and geological collections were all destroyed, including a rare collection of local mineral specimens of
Normandy. The destruction of the museum was so intense, that all the catalogues, lists of donations, lists of purchases and other archives prevented even a precise inventory of all that was lost."
The Shipowner's house From the 18th century; like the Museum of Old Havre it is dedicated to the History of Le Havre and contains many relics from the
Ancien Régime as well as furniture, old maps, statues, and paintings.
Museum of the Priory of Graville The Museum at the Priory of Graville displays many items of religious art including statues, madonnas, and other religious objects many of which are classified by the Ministry of Culture. It also houses the Gosselin collection of 206 model houses created by Jules Gosselin in the 19th century.
Others Other less important museums reflect the history of Le Havre and its maritime vocation. The
apartment-control (Apartement-Temoine) was a standard apartment designed by in 1947–1950 and shows a place of daily life in the 1950s. The maritime museum displays objects related to the sea and the port. Finally, there are numerous exhibitions in the city such as the
SPOT, a centre for
contemporary art, art galleries, and
Le Portique – a contemporary art space opened in 2008; the municipal library of Le Havre regularly organizes exhibitions. Other attractions include: • The former tribunal (18th century) • The Town Hall: the modern
belfry which now contains offices • The "Volcan" cultural centre built by
Oscar Niemeyer • Square St. Roch • Japanese Garden
Theatres, auditoriums and concerts There are two main cultural axes in Le Havre: the central city and the Eure district. The
Espace Oscar Niemeyer consists of a part of the "Great Volcano", a national theatre seating 1,093 (which houses the
National Choreographic Centre of Le Havre Haute-Normandie directed by Hervé Robbe) and secondly the "Little Volcano" with a 250-seat multi-purpose hall the
Little Theatre (450 seats), the
Théâtre des Bains Douches (94 seats),
Akté theatre (60 seats), and the
Poulailler (Henhouse)) (associative theatre with 50 seats) host numerous shows each year. The National Choreographic Centre of Le Havre Haute-Normandie specialises in the creation and production of dance shows. Other shows and performances are given in other places and at the Conservatory Arthur Honegger. The second cultural centre of the city is in the Eure district near the Basin Vauban. Docks Océane is a multi-purpose hall (concerts, shows, and sporting events) which can accommodate up to 4,700 spectators in . The largest cinema in Le Havre is located on the Docks Vauban (2,430 seats). The Docks Café is an exhibition centre of used for shows, fairs, and exhibitions. The
Magic Mirrors offers many concerts managed by the city and leased to private organizers. Following the closure of
Cabaret Electric which was located in the
Espace Oscar Niemeyer in 2011 a new auditorium,
Le Tetris, is under construction at the Fort of Tourneville. It was scheduled to open in September 2013 with a large festival free-of-charge. It will consist of two halls with 800 and 200 seats, exhibition space, housing for artists in residence, a restaurant etc.
Le Tetris will be a venue for contemporary music as well as theatre, dance, and visual arts. An "expectation" outside the walls was held on the site of the fort during 2012 and early 2013.
Libraries and archives The main library is located in the city centre, named after the writer
Armand Salacrou. It has branches in all districts. A new multimedia library at the "Volcano" is being refurbished for 2014. Thousands of references are available in specialized libraries in the Higher School of Art, the Museum of André Malraux, and the Natural History Museum. Medieval manuscripts and
Incunables are conserved at the public library. The archives of the city, at the Fort of Tourneville, possesses documents from the 16th to the 20th centuries.
Representations in visual arts '', 1872, painted in the Port of Le Havre. The Port of Le Havre and the light on the estuary of the Seine inspired many painters:
Louis-Philippe Crepin (1772–1851),
Jean-Baptiste Corot (1796–1875),
Eugène Isabey (1803–1886),
Theodore Gudin (1802–1880),
Adolphe-Felix Cals (1810–1880),
Jean-François Millet (1814–1875) in 1845,
Gustave Courbet (1819–1877) etc.. It is to
Eugène Boudin (1824–1898) who created many representations of Le Havre in the 19th century. The artist lived for a time in the city. Thanks to its proximity to
Honfleur, Le Havre was also represented by foreign artists such as
William Turner,
Johan Barthold Jongkind,
Alfred Stevens, and
Richard Parkes Bonington. ,
The Outer Harbour of Le Havre, Morning, Sun, Tide, 1902,
Museum of modern art André Malraux - MuMa Claude Monet (1840–1926), a resident of Le Havre from the age of five, in 1872 painted
Impression soleil levant (
Impression, Sunrise), a painting that gave its name to the
impressionist movement. In 1867–1868, he painted many seascapes in the Le Havre region (
Terrasse à Sainte-Adresse (
Garden at Sainte-Adresse), 1867
Bateaux quittant le port (Boats Leaving the Port), 1874). The
Musée Malraux houses some of his paintings : Waterlilies, London Parliament et Winter Sun at Lavacourt. Two other Impressionists,
Camille Pissarro (1830–1903) and
Maxime Maufra (1861–1918) also represented the port of Le Havre which also inspired
Paul Signac (1863–1935),
Albert Marquet (1875–1947), and
Maurice de Vlaminck (1876–1958). Then came the school of
Fauvism in which many artists did their training at Le Havre:
Othon Friesz (1879–1949), Henri de Saint-Delis (1876–1958),
Raoul Dufy (1877–1953),
Georges Braque (1882–1963), Raymond Lecourt (1882–1946), Albert Copieux (1885–1956), who followed the course of the
School of Fine Arts of Le Havre in the time of Charles Lhuillier. They left a number of paintings on the theme of the city and the port. In 1899,
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (1864–1901) painted
La serveuse anglaise du Star (The English waitress of Star) (Museum Toulouse-Lautrec, Albi) of a girl he met in a bar in the city. Other painters who painted Le Havre and/or its surroundings such as Sainte-Adresse can be cited in particular:
Frédéric Bazille, John Gendall,
Thomas Couture,
Ambroise Louis Garneray,
Pablo Picasso (
Souvenir du Havre).
Jean Dubuffet studied at the School of Art in Le Havre.
Cinema With nearly 70 films, Le Havre is one of the provincial cities most represented in the cinema. Several directors have chosen the port facilities as part of their movie: • ''
L'Atalante'' by
Jean Vigo (1934) •
Le Quai des brumes by
Marcel Carné (1938) •
Un homme marche dans la ville by
Marcello Pagliero took place in the port and the Saint-François district after the Second World War. It was nominated three times for the
37th César Awards.
Literature in front of the Law Courts in Le Havre. Le Havre appears in several literary works as a point of departure to America: in the 18th century,
Father Prevost embarked
Manon Lescaut and
Des Grieux for
French Louisiana. Fanny Loviot departed from Le Havre in 1852, as an emigrant to San Francisco and points further west, and recounted her adventures in
Les pirates chinois (''A Lady's Captivity among Chinese Pirates in the Chinese Seas'', 1858). In the 19th century, Le Havre was the setting for several French novels:
Honoré de Balzac described the failure of a Le Havre merchant family in
Modeste Mignon. Later, the Norman writer
Guy de Maupassant located several of his works at Le Havre such as ''Au muséum d'histoire naturelle
(At the Museum of Natural History) a text published in Le Gaulois
on 23 March 1881 and again in Pierre et Jean''.
Alphonse Allais located his intrigues at Le Havre too. (The Human Beast) by
Émile Zola evokes the world of the railway and runs along the
Paris–Le Havre railway. Streets, buildings, and public places in Le Havre pay tribute to other famous Le Havre people from this period: the writer
Casimir Delavigne (1793–1843) has a street named after him and a statue in front of the palace of justice alongside another man of letters,
Bernardin de Saint-Pierre (1737–1814). In the 20th century,
Henry Miller located part of the action in Le Havre in his masterpiece
Tropic of Cancer, published in 1934.
Bouville was the commune where the writer lived who wrote his diary in
La Nausée (The Nausea) (1938) by
Jean-Paul Sartre who was inspired by Le Havre city where he wrote his first novel. There are also the testimonies of
Raymond Queneau (1903–1976), born in Le Havre, the city served as a framework for his novel
Un rude hiver (A harsh winter) (1939). The plot of
Une maison soufflée aux vents (A house blown to the winds) by
Émile Danoën, winner of the Popular Novel Prize in 1951, and its sequel
Idylle dans un quartier muré (Idyll in a walled neighbourhood) were located in Le Havre during the
Second World War. Under the name
Port de Brume Le Havre is the setting for three other novels by this author:
Cerfs-volants (Kites), ''L'Aventure de Noël
(The Adventure at Christmas), and La Queue à la pègre
(Queue to the underworld). Michel Leiris wrote De la littérature considérée comme une tauromachie'' (Of literature considered like a bullfight) in December 1945.
Diana Gabaldon set the second novel in her
Outlander series,
Dragonfly in Amber (1992), partly in Le Havre. Two
mystery novels take place in Le Havre:
Le Bilan Maletras (The Maletras Balance) by
Georges Simenon and
Le Crime de Rouletabille (Crime at the Roulette table) by
Gaston Leroux. In
Rouge Brésil (Red Brazil), winner of the
Goncourt Prize in 2001,
Jean-Christophe Rufin describes Le Havre in the 16th century as the port of departure of French expeditions to the
New World: the hero
Villegagnon leaves of the port to conquer new lands for the French crown which become Brazil. Martine–Marie Muller tells the saga of a clan of
Stevedores from Le Havre in the 1950s to the 1970s in
Quai des Amériques (Quay of the Americas).
Benoît Duteurtre published in 2001,
Le Voyage en France (Travel in France), for which he received the
Prix Médicis: the main character, a young American impassioned by France, lands at Le Havre which he describes in the first part of the novel. In 2008, Benoît Duteurtre publishes ''Les pieds dans l'eau'' (Feet in the water), a highly autobiographical book in which he describes his youth spent between Le Havre and
Étretat. The city hosted writers such as
Emile Danoën (1920–1999) who grew up in the district of Saint-François, Yoland Simon (born 1941), and Philippe Huet (born 1955). Canadian poet
Octave Crémazie (1827–1879) died at Le Havre and was buried in Saint Marie Cemetery. The playwright
Jacques-François Ancelot (1794–1854) was also a native of Le Havre. Two famous historians,
Gabriel Monod (1844–1912) and
André Siegfried (1875–1959) were from the city. Le Havre also appears in comic books: for example, in ''
L'Oreille cassée (The Broken Ear) (1937), Tintin embarks on the vessel City of Lyon
sailing to South America. The meeting between Tintin and General Alcazar in Les Sept Boules de cristal
(The Seven Crystal Balls) (1948) is in Le Havre, according to notes by Hergé in the margins of Le Soir, the first publisher of this adventure. The first adventure of Ric Hochet (1963), the designer Tibet and André-Paul Duchâteau, Traquenard au Havre
(Trap at Le Havre) shows the seaside and the port. Similarly, in 1967, for the album Rapt sur le France
(Rapt on France), the hero passes by the ocean port. Frank Le Gall, in Novembre toute l'année
(November all year) (2000) embarks Theodore Poussin at Le Havre on the Cap Padaran''.
Music Le Havre is the birthplace of many musicians and composers such as Henri Woollett (1864–1936),
André Caplet (1878–1925) and
Arthur Honegger (1892–1955). There was also Victor Mustel (1815–1890) who was famous for having perfected the
harmonium. Le Havre has long been regarded as one of the cradles of French rock and
blues. In the 1980s many groups have emerged after a first dynamic development in the 1960s and 1970s. The most famous personality of Le Havre rock is
Little Bob who began his career in the 1970s. The port tradition in many of the groups was repeated in the unused sheds of the port, such as Bovis hall which could hold 20,000 spectators. A blues festival, driven by Jean-François Skrobek, Blues a Gogo existed for eight years from 1995 to 2002. Several artists have been produced such as:
Youssou N'Dour,
Popa Chubby,
Amadou & Mariam, Patrick Verbeke etc. It was organized by the Coup de Bleu association whose former president was head of music Café ''
L'Agora in the Niemeyer Centre which produced the new Le Havre scene. During these same years, the Festival of the Future
, the local version of the Fête de l'Humanité'' (Festival of Humanity), attracted a large audience. Currently, the musical tradition continues in the Symphony Orchestra of the city of Le Havre, the orchestra of Concerts André Caplet, the conservatory, and music schools such as the Centre for Vocal and Musical Expression (rock) or the JUPO (mainly
jazz), associations or labels like Papa's Production (la Folie Ordinaire, Mob's et Travaux, Dominique Comont, Souinq, Your Happy End etc.). The organization by the association of West Park Festival since the 2000s in
Harfleur and since 2004 at the Fort of Tourneville is a demonstration. Moreover, since 2008, the association
I Love LH was started and promotes Le Havre culture and especially its music scene by organizing original cultural events as well as the free distribution of compilation music by local artists.
Board game Main articles:
Le Havre (board game) Le Havre is a board game about the development of the town of Le Havre. It was inspired by the games
Caylus and
Agricola and was developed in December 2007.
Norman language Main articles:
Norman language and
Cauchois dialect. The legacy of the
Norman language is present in the language used by the people of Le Havre, part of which is identified as speaking
cauchois. Among the Norman words most used in Le Havre there are:
boujou (hello, goodbye),
clenche (door handle),
morveux (veuse) (child), and
bezot (te) (last born). ==Education==