Murs à Pêches de Montreuil : Active Heritage Approach

Agriculture is facing the challenges of climate change and de-fossilisation which can have a massive impact on our contemporary, industrialised agricultural production systems and agricultural landscapes. Agricultural heritage systems can be an important inspiration and knowledge base to adapt agriculture to local conditions and reintroduce a resource efficient production.

The Peach Walls of Montreuil are a cultivation system which allows to produce Mediterranean fruit near Paris. After making its way from seigneurial parks into local farming practices in the 18th century a thriving economy developed around peach cultivation in Montreuil. It declined with the import of Peaches since the beginning of the 20th century and the walls were abandoned. The student research explores how the peach wall zone was organised as a complex cultivation system making use of local materials and creating a micro-climate for fruit production. In addition to the walls, the techniques of tree grafting and cutting were enhanced over time.
After having been abandoned for decades, the Peach Walls receive new interest since the 1990ies and a multitude of local initiatives uses the heritage structure to develop new forms of greening the city and improving the quality of life for the local community.

As a takeaway for their own practice the students identified how an urban production system can be designed following the principles of sufficiency and how historic structures can be repurposed for contemporary practices while conserving their initial idea and materiality. This student research contributed to the book “Urban Agricultural Heritage” published in 2022.