Living together in Renens – rts.ch

Bold architecture

The year is 1966, and for several months, the Catholic parishioners of Renens have been celebrating mass in their new church. Opinions on this resolutely modern building are divided. The architect Pierre Dumas defends his project: he wanted to build a functional space, promoting collective prayer and corresponding to the liturgical renewal at work in the Catholic Church after Vatican II.

The architect has become, in our time, with the incredible, unimaginable means of technology, he has become the sorcerer’s apprentice who can do everything.

Diving into the heart of religious architectural modernism, this show Catholic presence is commented with wit and irony by the journalist Emile Gardaz.

Bringing the old gasworks to life

A collective of artists gathered around the Genevan director Philippe Mentha set up in 1978 in an abandoned workshop of the old gas factory, in the industrial zone of Renens. Together, they will voluntarily develop this place which becomes the Kléber-Méleau Theater in May 1979. TSR’s regional current affairs show One Day, One Hour offers us a portrait of this troop like no other.

Sens Unik, internationally renowned

In 1994, Tell That goes to meet the rap group Sens Uniqueoriginally from Renens, and leader of the hip-hop movement in Switzerland. The group also participated in the birth of French hip-hop with a first single entitled New policy in 1990. In this excerpt from the show, Just One and Carlos Leal attend the rehearsals of the Vaudois rap groups Lyrico Musical et West Lôzane Sound.

It’s true that something happened in Renens, which didn’t happen in the city of Lausanne or in the canton.

Renens, mixed city

How is cohabitation carried out between the Swiss population and the foreign population which represents 51% of the total population of the city of Renens? It is to this question that the show Present time attempts to answer in 1999 in this report.

If latent xenophobia exists, according to the socialist union member Anne-Marie Depoisier, the popist municipal councilor, Marianne Huguenin, explains it by the economic crisis which has accentuated the fear of foreigners. But at the same time, a certain trust has been established between the populations. And the observation is there: foreigners can live well and integrate in Renens.

It’s the fact of saying to ourselves that no matter where we come from, we are also from here.

The right to vote

For the first time, foreigners, established for more than 10 years in Switzerland, were able to vote in February 2004 in the canton of Vaud during the federal votes. In the commune of Renens, there are 5,000 people who can slip a ballot into the ballot box on municipal objects and even be elected in municipal elections. The emotion is there.

A successful transformation

Shortly before the inauguration in September 2007 of the Ecole Cantonale d’Art de Lausanne (ECAL), its future director Pierre Keller visited the new premises installed in the building of the former Iril stockings and tights factory in Renens, with a surface area of ​​13,800 square meters. Eighteen months of restoration work were necessary, under the watchful eye of architect Bernard Tschumi.

A city, in the heart of the Lake Geneva region

The history of Renens is closely linked to the development of its communications routes with the city of Lausanne, the Dorigny campus where the University (UNIL) and EPFL are located, and the Lake Geneva region. It began in 1875 with the construction of its station, important vector for the development of the industry. In 1991, the M1 line of the Lausanne metro was inaugurated. It provides access to the Dorigny campus, which was very isolated before this date.

The return of the tram

Attendance on the M1 metro has seen a constant increase. In order to relieve congestion on the line, a project for a new tram line between Renens station and Lausanne Flon was launched in 2012. After a long legal procedure, the building permit was finally accepted in 2020, construction begins in August 2021 and is expected to be completed in 2026.

The M1 metro is not the only one to be saturated. In 2013, the CFF Léman 2030 project was launched, which must respond to the sharp increase in passengers on the Lausanne-Geneva railway line and increased needs for infrastructure modernization. The transformation of the third station in French-speaking Switzerland, that of Renens, will be completed at the end of 2024. It will become a real railway hub, which takes into account the developments that have occurred over the last twenty years on the French-speaking Swiss railway network.

Once upon a time in the West of Lausanne

Never has a station in Switzerland gained so much importance in such a short time.

The Green Ray

At the heart of the Renens CFF station renovation project is the construction of a green pedestrian bridge, called Rayon Vert. 150 meters long, it connects the north and south squares of the station and offers direct access to the platforms, but also to buses, the M1 metro and, eventually, the tram.

The first sod was given in 2017, and the footbridge was inaugurated in 2021. It symbolizes the profound metamorphosis of this place intended to become a real mobility “hub”.

The great lady of Renens

A major political figure in the Popular Workers’ Party (POP), Marianne Huguenin will have marked the history of the city of Renens, bringing it into modernity with the arrival of the ECAL or the projects for a new station and tram line. The introduction of the right to vote and eligibility for foreigners at the municipal level also constitutes one of its great victories, and if it is good to live together in Renens, Marianne Huguenin is no stranger to it!

Originally from Le Locle, and a doctor by training, she settled permanently in Renens in 1987. A committed politician, she was successively a member of the city’s legislature, then municipal in Finance and Social Security. She was a union member of Renens between 1996 and 2006.

Martine Cameroni for the RTS Archives.