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  Complementary nature of cultural acts between Chamonix and Courmayeur : The Mont Blanc culture region

Mr. Luigi CORTESE - Consultant, Courmayeur, Italy

 

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In 2001, Courmayeur and Chamonix commenced a cross-border initiative to set up a cultural cooperation network: the Mont Blanc Culture Region. Given the significant tourist flows and geographical proximity, the report concludes that it is possible to organise events and exhibitions together, within the framework of what has been called the “Transborder Museum of Mont Blanc”.

 

Ladies and Gentlemen,

After Martigny and Chamonix, where the ambition to translate cultural events into tourism opportunities has already been asserted and reinforced, it is my turn to present to you a new approach for cultural cooperation currently in development in this area—the Mont Blanc Culture Region.

First of all, it is necessary to recollect the role of the Mont Blanc Culture Region, an entity for international cooperation that works to safeguard and manage the territory surrounding the Massif. Starting from this model and taking advantage of the network formed by this experience, Courmayeur and Chamonix have begun to share thoughts for combining culture and tourism in an international offering of exhibitions and events.

Let’s take a quick step back to recall the elements on which the idea of the Mont Blanc Culture Region is based.

Above all is the fact of having here in the heart of the Alps a large area with common characteristics : the French language (the root language not only for Savoyards and the inhabitants of the Valais, but also for many from the Valle d’Aosta), history, and popular traditions. Thus, even if the events of the last 200 years have made Mont Blanc’s three slopes evolve differently, it can be presumed that, indigenously, the human and intellectual resources for a strong cultural cooperation are present.

The mountain patrimony. The mountain separates us. The mountain brings us together. All of the populations of this area feel they are in some way the “guardians” of the exceptional patrimony that is Mont Blanc. The physical power, the symbolic role that it has across Europe, the mythical connotation that it has in the history of mountaineering and in the collective imagining of the mountain, make Mont Blanc the “ideal summit” where the mountain cultures of the Northwest Alps can be identified.

Economic aspect. Chamonix and Courmayeur are among the major resorts of the Alpine arch. There were nearly 500,000 visitors in 2001 for Courmayeur (around 880,000 in the Valdigne) and two million for Chamonix. This is a significant mass of customers, to which we must also add those passing through, considering the location of the two resorts along the international corridor that crosses Mont Blanc, and the visitors in holiday houses. In periods of high tourist occupancy, there is thus a population that expresses a high demand for services, leisure activities, and also culture.

Strangely enough, even if the exchanges between Courmayeur and Chamonix have always been significant and continuous, it was during the period when the Mont Blanc tunnel was closed that the most progress was made in the direction of concrete cultural cooperation between the two resorts. After years of networking and attempts at collaboration, in 2001 the two Communes signed a “Charter of cultural cooperation” and began the realisation of a cross-border project within the framework of the Interreg IIIA programme: the “Transborder Museum of Mont Blanc”.

Courmayeur and Chamonix : two exceptional showcases for the culture of the mountain

The “Transborder Museum of Mont Blanc” project is based on the idea of two independent but complementary museum-related structures, working in concert on both sides of the massif. The Museum is putting down its roots in Chamonix and Courmayeur, two communities which have actively participated in writing the mountain’s history and in the very distinctive process of civilisation which followed. Today, the two are destinations on an international level where a tourism clientele that is always very attentive to cultural and artistic offerings can be found. This clientele expresses very high demand for events of the highest quality, wherever possible. In the face of this demand, which is estimated to be growing, Chamonix and Courmayeur have complementary locations both from the point of view of their tourism character and the type of their clientele. Their strategic union can create a great and even unique synergy in the entire Northwest Alpine arch.

To reiterate, Courmayeur and Chamonix are the key players in a territorial reality in which one can find quite a remarkable cultural wealth, a wealth forming an underlying culture which in some way nourishes the important museum-related proposals. In this context, Courmayeur and Chamonix have a great responsibility to the economic development of the surrounding territories. The Transborder Museum can become the linchpin in a cultural policy that also involves other small mountain centres in the Mont Blanc area, who could enrich their offerings and their cultural initiatives by taking advantage of the boosts given by this dynamic of transborder cooperation.

The Museum will have great media value as “creator” of the image and the symbolisation of the mountain. This will make it possible to focus visitors’ attention on themes that value the Alpine world as a whole. In this regard, the museum’s spaces will be the standards that will contribute to enriching the tourism strategy of Chamonix and Courmayeur by positioning the Mont Blanc Area on a cultural field beyond that of “popular arts and traditions”.

It is on the basis of these considerations that we conclude that the Transborder Museum could be unique in its genre, because of its privileged position in the heart of the Alps and the importance of the history and human and cultural experience of the communities that support it.

Activities of the cultural cooperation programme

The Transborder Museum project is the first stage of the Mont Blanc Culture Region’s steps, and the two resorts are going to take advantage of aid from the European Union to create conditions for organising a cultural network in the Mont Blanc area, with these notable activities :

• supporting the initiatives of the two resorts for realising exhibition spaces;
• organising exhibitions and events together;
• setting up a permanent Transborder Committee of Cultural Cooperation with the job of proposing programmes of common initiatives and perpetuating the collaboration.

The cultural network can rely on some interesting assets if the geographic situation of the Mont Blanc region is considered. Around the Massif are three poles which can be the focal points in the Mont Blanc Culture Region: Courmayeur, Chamonix and Martigny. As you have seen, these resorts can play a strategic role in transborder cultural cooperation. As for the Valle d’Aosta it must be taken into account also that, due to the intervention of the Regional Administration, an important eco-museum, focusing on the themes of the mountain, nature and the territory, is going to be completed in the Valdigne, in the Communes of Morgex and La Salle.

The links between the three main resorts are strong, in accordance with their well-developed road network, even if it is clear that Chamonix is to some degree the gravitational point of this ideal region.

The surrounding geographical area allows us to again make some considerations for both organising the cultural offering and defining a potential client base. In an hour’s radius by car—a completely acceptable trip for a large part of our visitors—we find not only the three resorts but also major towns like Annecy and Aosta.

The pool of potential clients is vast and includes urban and metropolitan areas such as Chambéry, Lyon, Lausanne, Geneva, Turin and Milan. In the Valle d’Aosta, a large part of the tourists already come from these large cities.

Now a last glance over the location of Chamonix and Courmayeur, in order to better assess the concrete possibility of setting up common initiatives. After having re-opened the Mont Blanc Tunnel, only 25-30 minutes separate the two resorts. This is a privileged location that makes daily exchanges of clients possible.

A preliminary evaluation of all of these elements tells us that in Courmayeur and Chamonix, we have the conditions under which we can devise a significant cultural domain, where the principal issue is the ability to offer the resident population and the tourists an international package of quality events and exhibitions.

I cannot go into in the details, because the Mont Blanc Culture Region is still in its initial phase, but it can be said that there is no shortage of themes to be developed within the context of this cross-border cooperation. The heart of the Transborder Museum’s cultural proposal is the mountain, and the exhibition “Crossing the Alps” organised by Chamonix anticipates the subjects that will be developed by the common initiatives of the two resorts.

Over the course of the numerous discussions that drove the drafting phase of the transborder project, it was held that it was necessary in any case not to fall into ethnographic celebration. There are already a number of museums and exhibition centres on both sides of the border with this theme. The ambition of the Mont Blanc Transborder Museum is to represent the mountain in its universal dimension, with its problems and contradictions, with an effort to integrate the contributions from different cultures and visions of this thusly complex world.

I will quickly conclude with the operational schedule of the project.

The Interreg project for the Mont Blanc Transborder Museum will take place over two years, 2003 and 2004, with the following activities :

1. forming the permanent structure of cooperation and cultural development—the Mont Blanc Culture Region. This is the principal operation necessary in order to get the cultural cooperation network underway;
2. economic analysis (budget, operating costs, etc.) to give the Communal administrations a reliable framework of investment necessary to organise events and to manage permanent exhibition spaces;
3. programme of common exhibitions. In 2003, we estimate we will already be able to organise an initial exhibition of photography on a theme which is just now being defined, but which should give exposure to the new mountain photographers from our areas;
4. common design plan for laying out permanent exhibitions on two slopes of Mont Blanc (Museum of the Mountain in Chamonix, and the Salles du Jardin de l’Ange in Courmayeur). The goal is to standardize the organisation and servicing of the spaces dedicated to the transborder exhibitions in the two resorts;
5. promotion with local professionals and the public at large, both to involve the resource people of the area and to launch the initiative on the two countries’ tourism market.

 

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