The Construction of the Image of Power and the Welfare State in Fort-de-France: Architecture and the City, 1927–1986

This research addresses the reception and variations in the Modern Movement in the French Caribbean, focusing on the urban transformation of Fort-de-France, Martinique, between 1927 and 1986. Through a critical methodology based on decentralized perspectives and “situated gazes,” this study challenges traditional historiographical narratives that often subordinate tropical architecture to mere simplified derivatives of European metropolises. Utilizing the development and implementation of the ARMOMA platform (Architecture du Mouvement Moderne en Martinique)—a specialized digital archive and cartographic database—this work documents, spatially visualizes, and analyzes the region’s modern heritage. Methodologically, it examines a specific sample of 77 state-owned buildings divided into three key typologies—educational (34), institutional (30), and sanitary (13)—extracted from a wider urban universe of 332 modern works, evaluating their spatial relations with 171 residential architectures. Rather than constituting simple transpositions of metropolitan models, these infrastructures reveal processes of climatic, material, and cultural adaptation that contributed to the emergence of a specific form of Caribbean tropical modernism. The findings show how this localized practice reinterpreted Western rationalism through hybrid construction techniques, passive environmental strategies, and local building knowledge. In conclusion, the study highlights that, while architecture commonly serves as an instrument of institutional representation, in Martinique this role acquired particular relevance following the 1946 Departmentalisation. Within this framework, the French state promoted a range of public architectural typologies in Fort-de-France that materialized the expansion of welfare policies and administrative modernization. These developments accompanied the consolidation of the Welfare State in Martinique and continued until the implementation of the Decentralization Laws of 1982–1983.