If the investigations on architecture of the second twentieth century are now about ten years old, this heritage remains largely less recognized by the edility and the public, hence the interest of the censuses and monographs proposed here. Logically, after the census phase, which delimited the corpus of ensembles and residencies in Marseilles in its extension, the aim was to reduce their contours in order to develop a greater understanding, formalized by the monograph sheets. By definition, they reflect only one object of the corpus, but all the monographs thus constitute a collection covering a series of similar objects allowing the construction of typologies, classifications and comparisons.
1.0206 - Villa d'Este
La Joliette, on the north coast of Marseille
Literature references: 20th century heritage, domestic architecture
X edition directory number: 0206, p. 5.
Conception & writing T. Durousseau arch. 2007
designation: Residence Villa d'Este
9 to 11 avenue Robert Schuman, quartier de La Joliette 13002
Lambert 3: lat. 3. 02896; long. 43.301
Access: metro 1: La Timone - La Rosemétro 2: Bougainville - Sainte-Marguerite
bus no. 55: Joliette - Roucas Blanc, bus no. 83: métro Rond Point - Joliette
Owner: Syndicate of Co-owners of the Villa d'Este
program: Urban building of 116 apartments, public equipment, offices, shops and garages.
dates, authors: Building Permit: 1972. Delivery: 1973. Owner: Caillol, builder, Claude Gros, architect. Company: Caillol.
site: Island north of the Cathedral, between Marchetti Street and Robert Schuman Avenue. Land in steep slope east-west between 2.45 and 11.53 m, area of 1100 m2. Housing Area B (urban fabric) on the Master Urban Plan of 1949.
mass plane: Urban island with strip built to the east and south, forming the head of the island on the esplanade of the Major. Vegetated terrace open to the west. Spreading between R+6, R+10 with penthouses and pool.
frame: Reinforced concrete frame buildings, very glazed entrances. Very large apartments. Very good general condition.
sources: AD: 2071 W 53 (20.428)
Background:
The 19th century, with the creation of the Joliette harbour infrastructure (1840) and the construction of the new Cathedral (1893), was a major change in the topography of the west coast of the old town. Walter Benjamin describes the Major’s podium as the most deserted and sunniest square, blocked between the port and the proletarian districts.
Although the new quays were quickly covered with buildings, the second-tier blocks remained for a long time a warehouse site, the only dwellings being further north, towards Boulevard des Dames. The site will also be heavily exposed during the American bombing of 1944. Although the reconstruction of the historic centre on the Old Port began in the immediate post-war period, the transformation of the Joliette district did not take place until the late 1960s.
The Villa d'Este is undoubtedly the first building of this period of re-urbanization of the current avenue Robert Schuman whose southern perspective is centered on the tower of F. Pouillon à la Tourette. This urban renovation will continue with the realization of the office building at the corner of the boulevard des Dames (Crédit Universel in 1974) whose author is none other than Claude Gros. The urbanization of Euroméditerranée is located in this suite, even if buildings with mixed programs are very rare.
Description:
The land of the Villa d'Este is located to the south of a long island delimited by Rue Marchetti, Rue Jean François Lecca and Avenue Robert Schuman, and bordered by Place de la Major. This southern location near the open space of the monument has prompted several initiatives, including a project by Georges and Bernard Laville, the builder and the architect. The project will consist of a program combining offices, businesses, a tax centre and, of course, housing.
The project is in the southern part of the island, forming two main alignments on the esplanade on one side and on the other on the avenue R. Schuman. Although back in line with the avenue, which was in the air of the time, the square return of the building on the Major will be limited to six floors by the architect of the buildings of France who, moreover, will not find it difficult not to cover the building with tiles.
To the south, the building docks with the grand staircase on Marchetti Street, which describes the ten metres of the difference in altitude between the Major’s Esplanade and the Tourette’s wharf. The volume superimposes two levels of offices illuminated by regularly distributed windows, then the ground floor where are located reception offices of public equipment whose bay windows are protected by vertical adjustable blades. The upper six floors are occupied by dwellings that support a projecting balcony, two levels of horizontal drilling alternating full lightening and window-band that house studios. Finally the top three floors are dug by the loggias of the current apartments. The whole, unified by a travertine coating, is perceived as an overlay of facades, pushing far enough the expression of the various functions of the building.
On the Avenue Robert Schuman, the facade is predominantly horizontal (headband), superimposing without appearing three floors of offices then housing. On the ground floor, raised above the public space, entrance halls and areas dedicated to shops are served by stairs adding to the confusion of sloping floors.
The ground floor overlooks a large, widely planted terrace, under which are three levels of garages, bordered to the south and east by a strip of offices whose facade on Marchetti Street is made by a curtain wall. The device allows both to give an urban figure to the three levels of garages, to renew the architectural expression of the offices drawing a base on the scale of industrial buildings bordering the street. The base is coming to die, in the south, in the flights of stairs of the Major’s esplanade.
To top it all off, the building has on its roof two penthouses that are poorly translated as apartments on the roof, with of course terraces, plantations and pools, which mark the quality of the urban and landscaped situation of the building. At the same time, these volumes, these plantations integrate the technical emergence of roofs and plastically articulate the southern volume and the main body of the building.
Author:
Claude Gros,
born in 1925, student of G. Castel and Lemaresquier is of the generation of architects trained in the immediate post-war period.
Author of major housing programs, most often private, he will remain faithful to a rational architecture, where the structures are expressed by rigorous outlines and imbued with the necessity of prefabrication.
In Marseille, he directed:
Park Kallisté 1958, 800 dwellings,
La Granière in 1961, 445 dwellings in prefabricated panels,
like Castel Roc in 1973,
or The Mail in 1974.
Finally La Benausse, and La Parade where he creates three-dimensional prefabricated panels.
He is also the author of several elements of urban architecture such as the Saint-Georges, the Trieste and Venice building in 1962, the Marceau in 1964 and the Villa d'Este where the mix of programs and integration into the space of the city does not exclude a modern writing.
Associated files:
- Map of the 2nd district of Marseille
- Documented Monograph Record
© Thierry Durousseau, 2004-2005