Henri Gignoux: an original spatial strategy by a 19th-century industrialist in the Southern Alps[Henri Gignoux : une stratégie spatiale originale d’un industriel du XIXe siècle dans les Alpes du sud]

Between 1880 and 1931, the spatial strategy of the entrepreneur Henri Gignoux led to the development of several industrial activities in the Buëch sector of the Southern Alps. The production of natural ice, sparkling mineral water and hydroelectricity was complemented by a sawmill for the manufacture of packaging for ice blocks and bottles of sparkling water, which were exported throughout south-eastern France and, in the case of the mineral water, to Asia and North Africa. Henri Gignoux, originally from Geneva and initially based in Lyon, set up his industrial business in Aspres-sur-Buëch, in the heart of the Buëch sector, in the Hautes-Alpes department, where he built a family home on an estate where he planted remarkable trees and the first tennis court in the Hautes-Alpes. An innovative entrepreneur, he provided the village of Aspres-sur-Buëch with electric lighting before Marseille by installing a hydroelectric power station on the local river, the Buëch. He had one of the first Ripert-brand cars manufactured in Marseille, an outward sign of his social status as a notable with two properties, one in Marseille and the other in Aspres-sur-Buëch. He was involved in social clubs such as the Provence Automobile Club and the Gap Tennis Club, which he founded and became its first president. He was also a member of committees and professional bodies, where he forged many relationships with other entrepreneurs. A geo-historical approach to this strategy reveals a series of interlocking areas in which this captain of industry invested. Locally, he bought land, rebuilt and created a hydraulic network, developed industrial infrastructure and negotiated concessions to export his products by rail. Taken together, these form the territory of the company's spatial footprint. In the second half of the nineteenth century, the spatial model of the "territorialising" industrial owner, shared by many entrepreneurs, led to strong local roots through the acquisition of land occupied not only by industrial sites and transport infrastructure, but also by workers' housing, which often took the form of workers' housing estates. Although Henri Gignoux was partly part of this model, in particular by not developing a workers' housing estate, it seems that the seasonal migration of labour, specific to the mountain environment and space, limited the forms of spatial strategy of this industrial boss, who contributed to the "soft" industrial revolution characteristic of these mountain environments.