While France was still healing the wounds inflicted by the First World War in the north and east, bombing campaigns by the Germans in 1940 and the Allies between 1944 and 1945 ravaged much of the country. Despite political differences, there was undeniable continuity between the actions of the Vichy regime and those of the Fourth Republic, particularly in terms of state intervention. Ministerial apparatuses took charge not only of development plans, but also of technical processes, encouraging standardization.
Pétain's vision of a France returning to its rural roots was certainly reflected in architecture, where traditionalism and regionalism triumphed, despite the resistance of several groups of young modernists. As early as 1944, the programs of the powerful Ministry of Reconstruction and Urban Planning were open to modernists such as Le Corbusier, André Lurçat and Marcel Lods, while Auguste Perret dominated the post-war scene just as much as he had during the Occupation.
Despite the similarity of the procedures implemented, the tangible results were very different, whether in terms of the principles defining urban compositions or the concrete face of the buildings constructed, from the granite-clad buildings of Saint-Malo to the fluid forms imported from Brazil that characterize the new Royan. Buoyed by the prestige of the liberation of France, and disseminated through publications and exhibitions, American architecture became one of the preferred sources for post-war approaches.
