Photographs of the "Rue Paul Magès" sign at the Vélizy Technical Centre

Five snapshots documenting the 1997 installation of signage dedicating a street at the Vélizy Technical Centre to Paul Magès, "inventor of the hydraulic connector" and "father of hydraulics at Citroën".

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Presentation and original captions

During 1997, a competition was organised to name the streets of the Vélizy Technical Centre. Later, a notice informed the centre's staff of the names of the inventors selected. On 31 July 1997, the Vélizy Communication Department informed Paul MAGÈS of the result of the consultation. He accepted, of course, and gave his agreement on the following 12 August. During September, a ceremony was organised on site. Paul MAGÈS unveiled the plaque, and to his astonishment, the plaque bore the following name: Rue Paul MAGÈS "inventeur du raccord hydraulique" instead of "inventeur de l'hydraulique Citroën". His son Michel, who was standing next to him, heard him say "I hope this one won't leak". The next day, his son contacted the Communication Department and expressed his father's disappointment, as he felt that if he were considered merely the inventor of a connector, the honour bestowed upon him was undeserved. A promise was made to rectify the "error". We will never know if the promise was kept. We have created a photo-montage of the plaque as we had suggested it to the Communication Department. To this day, the plaque has disappeared; it has been replaced by a "Totem" simply indicating: Rue Paul MAGÈS. One might wonder if this name means anything to the generations that followed his retirement.

Understanding this document

In this document

This archive gathers five photographs documenting the installation of the "Rue Paul Magès" signage at the Vélizy Technical Centre site.

The inauguration ceremony

Page 4 shows an elderly man, wearing a hat and raincoat, holding a birch branch in front of a temporary street sign (red and white flag) fixed to a post. The scene takes place in front of a modern building, in the presence of several people, one of whom is photographing the scene — evoking a moment of unveiling or inauguration.

The final plaques

Two versions of the official sign are photographed:

a grey plaque bearing the words "Rue Paul Magès" and "Inventeur du raccord hydraulique" p. 5;
a similar plaque bearing "Rue Paul Magès" and "Père de l'hydraulique chez Citroën" p. 6, described in detail in its form (grey-green background, red diagonal).

The road signs

Pages 7 and 8 show simpler road-type signs, bearing only the inscription "Rue Paul Magès" p. 7 or "Rue Paul Mages" — without an accent — p. 8, installed along the site's paths, amidst vegetation and parked vehicles.

Context

In Citroën's history, the Vélizy Technical Centre is one of the brand's main research and development sites. According to other items in this same file, the naming of the site's streets in 1997 was the subject of a signage project led by the CTV Communication Department, which notably solicited Paul Magès himself for this occasion.

In automotive technical history, Paul Magès is the engineer associated with the invention of the Citroën hydropneumatic suspension, a system that notably equipped the DS. Having joined Citroën in August 1925 and retired in September 1974 after a 49-year career (photographs of his retirement), he had already left the company for more than twenty years when this street was dedicated to him in 1997. The mentions "inventeur du raccord hydraulique" and "père de l'hydraulique chez Citroën" visible on the plaques refer to this recognition of his role, without the document detailing his achievements further.

Archivist's perspective

These photographs constitute a rare and concrete testimony to the institutional recognition granted to Paul Magès during his lifetime: a street at the industrial site bears his name, with two different formulations of his technical contribution p. 5-6. In 1997, Paul Magès, who had been retired since 1977 in Ramatuelle where he served on the municipal council (list of members of the Ramatuelle municipal council), thus returned symbolically to his former workplace for this ceremony.

The photograph on page 4 seems to document a moment of ceremony or symbolic placement of the plaque, the elderly man depicted being likely Paul Magès himself given the context of the file, although nothing in the document explicitly names him.

Note the orthographic variation of the name between the signs ("Magès" with an accent p. 5-7, "Mages" without an accent p. 8), a simple manufacturing detail that does not detract from the commemorative value of the whole.

These snapshots find their logical place alongside the Internal information note "Signage project" and the Letter from the CTV Communication Department to Paul Magès, which shed light on the administrative genesis of this street naming.