Although very few buildings were actually built during the four years of Nazi Germany's occupation of France, between summer 1940 and autumn 1944, the brief period when the government was established in Vichy was decisive for French architecture and urban planning.
Not only was the profession reorganized - and purged under the regime's racial laws - but the State also took control of town planning and urban development, launching sometimes innovative reconstruction plans.
While Marshal Pétain's call to "return to the land" and the generally unfavorable climate for modern approaches paved the way for conservative projects designed to prolong regional traditions, many architects set out to subvert official policies and develop functional features for rural buildings.
At the same time, research was launched into standardization and prefabrication, the shadow of which would extend over post-war France, as all the laws and regulations promulgated by Vichy remained in force, while many of the protagonists at work during the Occupation remained in place after the Liberation.
Among the many architects involved during this brief but intense period, the careers of Gaston Bardet, Eugène Beaudouin, Le Corbusier, Auguste Perret and Michel Roux-Spitz were considered.