Discover Rouen’s “Le Quartier Libre”, former wasteland Lucien
The Friche Lucien becomes “The Free District”. This cultural and festive third place opened on Friday April 1, 2002 in Rouen (Seine-Maritime) in place of the future Saint Sever station. We make you discover the novelties.
La Friche Lucien is over but the adventure continues! This cultural and festive third place, installed on the left bank of Rouen for 3 years, becomes “Le Quartier Libre”.
Previously, the Friche Lucien was an alternative cultural place, dedicated to creation, culture, leisure and living well together, deployed on the site of the future Saint Sever station. We came here for a drink, customer in pop-up shops or attend concerts.
From now on, the wasteland is reinventing itself. Same place, same team and among the novelties: a double surface and an opening all the year (compared to six months earlier), for 10 years. The Atelier Lucien, manager of the former Friche Lucien had obtained a call for tenders launched by the SNCF.
For the rest, apart from the name change, the philosophy remains the same, with always a specific cultural program.
“We are moving more towards a rather ’emerging scene’ but also electronic programming. We are on hybrid events, that is to say that during our events and our concerts, we try to create a universe around the artist that we invite”, explains Simon Ugolin, associate co-manager of Atelier Lucien. “The big difference is also the duration of our events: the artists will play until 4 or 5 hours.”
For the rest, regulars will find the restaurant “Popote” or the ready-to-wear shop “Las Hermosas”.
The stalls of the Friche Lucien will continue to exist in the Quartier Libre with the usual residents who will offer tattoos, plants, clothes and old photographs and will also welcome a new catering point “Les Tendres Normands”, as well as a escape game.
The Free Quarter works without subsidies because the team does not want to depend on elected officials, but with an economic model that has proven itself. “As soon as we started to design projects, we very quickly said to ourselves that we were going to sell beer to offer culture”, continues Simon Ugolin.
On one of the bars, restaurants, the profits made by these spaces allow us to offer more than 85% of our programming free of charge or at a lower cost.
Simon Ugolin, co-managing partner of Atelier Lucien
An alternative cultural place that does not refuse partnerships with institutions. The “Spring” festival, on new forms of circus, offers new creations by the magician Yann Frisch, in its 80-seat theater truck. The place seduced the artist: “It’s alternative and at the same time they are very square in what they do and on this scale, I think they don’t really have a choice, there is small similarities on our scale of this theater truck which has an itinerant-bohemian side but it still has to remain square otherwise it doesn’t work at all!”
With land twice as large, 8,000 m², the free neighborhood has not finished inventing itself. 2,000 m² are still available. The team is therefore open to other adventurers to expand the district.
With a view to revegetating the very mineral site, green spaces created with the contribution of 300m3 of earth and 200 new local plants will promote biodiversity. In addition, the “Le Jardin des Bleu es” association is developing shared gardens within the Quartier Libre: individual or collective plots as well as all the equipment for the perfect little gardener will be made available to the public who will continue to adhere to association.
In terms of activities, new events are emerging. Night markets animated by local exhibitors will follow one another and highlights around societal and environmental commitment will take place every month by highlighting important causes and themes such as feminism, LGBTQI+ rights, solidarity, the animal cause and ecology… On the musical scene, all the programming will be available on:
www.lequartierlibre.org
This Saturday, April 2, 2022, the Quartier libre is relaunching its “Long live Parentheses”, mini-festival with a dozen DJ’s on two stages.