EPREUVE BLANCHE

ÉPREUVE D’ENSEIGNEMENT DE SPÉCIALITÉ

LANGUES, LITTÉRATURES ET
CULTURES ÉTRANGÈRES ET RÉGIONALES

ANGLAIS MONDE CONTEMPORAIN

Durée de l’épreuve : 3 heures 30

L’usage du dictionnaire unilingue non encyclopédique est autorisé.

Partie 1 (16 pts)

Partie 1 (16 points)

Prenez connaissance du dossier proposé, composé des documents A, B et C non

Taking into account their specificities and viewpoints, say what the documents show about the
difficulties, risks, and paradoxes of city-planning. You will pay particular attention to:

- public policy;
- community;
- heritage;
- past and future.

Partie 2 (4 points)

Traduisez le passage suivant, issu du document C, en français.

“However, the intervening 50 years have provided evidence that some post-war ideals were
misguided. The rise of suburbia and personal transportation are widely accepted to have
diminished the urban environment of cities around the globe, many of whom are now seeking
to mend the scars left behind by the rise of the urban motorway. Yet instead in Scotland we
seem to be seeking to preserve and protect them.”
DOCUMENT A
Glasgow's Kingston Bridge could become listed structure

© Glasgow Motorway Archive

The Kingston Bridge in Glasgow, which carries the M8 motorway over the River Clyde, could
be given listed status.

The structure is 50 years old.

At 270m (886ft) long, and 40m (131ft) wide, it is a key part of Scotland's transport network.
When the Queen Mother carried out the official opening on 26 June 1970, it marked the end of a
three-year construction project which cost £11m.

Transport Scotland has now applied to Historic Environment Scotland to have the bridge listed as a
structure of historic and architectural interest.
[...]
Stuart Baird, from the Glasgow Motorway Archive, said: “The Kingston Bridge was recognised as one
of the most ambitious infrastructure projects ever undertaken in Scotland at the time and it's had a
huge impact in shaping the city over the last five decades.

“Listing the bridge doesn't simply acknowledge its unique engineering and architectural features, it
also recognises the work of the people that designed, built and maintained it over its first half-century
of service.”
BBC News, 25 June 2020.
DOCUMENT B
How Glasgow communities were torn apart in the name of progress

“Glasgow was almost a testing ground for inner city motorways,” says Norry Wilson, the writer and
historian whose Lost Glasgow Facebook site and accompanying website documents the changing
face of the city. [...]

A new bridge across the Clyde had been proposed as far back as 1945 when the controversial Bruce
Report looked to regenerate the post-war city.

Ruthless in its outlook, it suggested clearing slums along with a major new road network that placed
some of Glasgow’s architectural gems including the Glasgow School of Art, Glasgow City Chambers,
Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum and Central Station in its crosshairs.

“The Bruce Report is remembered for advocating wholesale demolition of the city centre and
rebuilding it in some kind of 1950s eastern bloc style,” says Stuart Baird, chairperson of Glasgow
Motorway Archive.

“There was a lot of austerity after the war, and they couldn’t agree on where the development should
happen.”

It took over a decade before an agreement was reached that 20 inner-city areas should be earmarked
for comprehensive redevelopment, paving the way for a pared back version of the Bruce Report’s
road plans.

While some historic gems were saved, the delivery of Glasgow Inner Ring Road, the M8 and the
Kingston Bridge would see others meet their end. Swathes of Townhead were flattened, including
Parliamentary Road, which ran from Sauchiehall Street to the East End.

And tenements in Cowcaddens, an area blighted by high child mortality rates, slums and low life
expectancy, were razed to make way for new concrete corridors. As the new road network crept
towards the Clyde, it gobbled up communities which formed when the land was still being farmed and
homes were clustered in simple villages. [...]

The irony, adds Norry, is that communities and heritage were sacrificed for roads and a bridge in a
city where cars were not king for most.

“It was never designed to help the people of Glasgow; it was to get people from one side to the other
without going through Glasgow.”

“Glasgow compared with a lot of other British cities has a very low per capita car ownership figure.”

“When you talk to older people about what was lost, they are full of stories and talk of 35 it as a
criminal act of destruction,” he adds.

“Younger people just ask why we ever allowed it to happen.”

Internationally, [the Kingston bridge] is a rare example of a motorway taking pride of place in a city
centre. Its presence is a reminder of the post war ideals of progress, individual transportation and
suburban expansion.

However, the intervening 50 years have provided evidence that some post-war ideals were
misguided. The rise of suburbia and personal transportation are widely accepted to have diminished
the urban environment of cities around the globe, many of whom are now seeking to mend the scars
left behind by the rise of the urban motorway. Yet instead in Scotland we seem to be seeking to
preserve and protect them.

The fact that the Kingston Bridge carries more that 150,000 vehicles a day is not an engineering feat
to be celebrated, but bad infrastructure planning that requires correction.

[...]

Specifically because of its city centre location, listing the Kingston Bridge is incongruous with the
prevailing consensus that urban motorways of the post war period were a mistake. Cities across the
world are working to repair the damage to their fabric through downgrading motorway infrastructure,
increasing density and promoting active travel and pedestrianisation more similar to Glasgow of 1940.
Limiting the potential of urban renewal and repair around the Kingston Bridge risks perpetuating the
mistakes of the past at the expense of the future.
‘John Gilbert Architects: Thoughts on listing the Kingston Bridge’, 7 July 2020 (Source: https://
scottishconstructionnow.com).