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.
1.0707 - Résidence Le Pharo
at the port entrance, due west, the 7th arrondissement
Literature references: 20th century heritage, domestic architecture
X edition directory no. 0707, p. 12. 2005
Conception & writing T. Durousseau arch. 2007
designation: Residence Tour Le Pharo
75 boulevard Charles Livon, quartier du Pharo 13007
Lambert 3: latitude 3.02267; longitude 43.2917
Access: bus 81: metro Saint-Just - Le Pharo, bus 33: Joliette - rond-point du Prado
Owner: Syndicate of co-owners of the residence
Cooperative Trustee M. Suzanne
program: Housing group of 105 dwellings, garages and shops.
Client: SCI d'Entr'aide Professionnelle Finances.
Set of 3 buildings tower, plate, angle.
dates, authors: PC: 1955. Completed in 1956.
Yvon Bentz, André Devin, architects.
Georges Laville, Bet Laupiès.
site: Facing the garden and palace of the Pharo, overlooking the Old Port, in front of the Fort Saint-Nicolas. Altitude NGF 14.00 m. Residential area, Sector F of the Master Planning Plan of 1949.
mass plane: Plan in front of the courtyard on the boulevard Pasteur formerly occupied by a service station and with building foot trade. All three buildings are highly identifiable.
Spreading: buildings R+8 to R+19.
frame: Load-bearing structure on the façade, twisting concrete forming separative apartments. Loggias in preferential orientation. Facades regulated by a crosslinked structure. Profile roof emergences. Very good general condition.
cf. notice: 0504 - Sulfur City
sources: AD: 2071 W 8 (28.919), 165 W 42, 150 J 69-70
COR Base
Background:
Endowed, in 1949, with an Urban Development Plan co-produced by the State and the City, Marseille is in a period of renewal. The rules of reconstruction allow the exceeding of the ceilings of current height for buildings demolished during the war (cf. Bel Horizon).
The Pharo district, hit by the 1944 bombings, is attributed the vocation of abuildings. In 1952, a retail planning project by F. Pouillon included a grouping of towers. This is why we find high-rise buildings like the Saint-Nicolas, the Saint-Georges, the Catalans and the Pastor.
Pasteur Boulevard is organized in groups of houses contiguous now a strong urban continuity west of Fort Saint-Nicolas.
The site, overlooking the Old Port, remains geographically very exposed, and enjoys the proximity of the sea.
Description:
The situation of the housing group in a district dominated by the towers immediately gave it a very new character, breaking with the architecture of reconstruction of the port. A kind of terminal on the Old Port, the tower echoes that of the Tourette designed by F. Pouillon. Legend has it that the mayor, Gaston Defferre, had a certain distrust of the architects who had assured him of the building’s low impact on the basin.
The three buildings that make up the plan draw an open forecourt in order to perceive the tower on all its height from Boulevard Pasteur. The center of the courtyard was occupied by a gas station, another sign ofmodernism, which preceded access to some garages. At the foot of the tower and the eight-storey building, a double-height gallery houses shops that make this part of the district a successful urban event; much more than the northern forecourt requested by the Prefect to widen the crossing of the Fort, but on the other hand, constantly beaten by the winds.
The tower with its plan forming an H distributes six apartments per floor, it remains little slender. To redeem this defect, the architects wrap it with a concrete mesh, the mesh of which is sometimes joined with the building, sometimes detached in a very aerial way. This process of surface adjustment, close to the curtain wall, had already been implemented during Gouffé (Sulfur City). It takes the status of envelope with a certain independence vis-à-vis the tower’s own volume.
In the same way, the roof superstructures are profiled, with a recessed floor followed by a second that includes the building’s technical emergences.
The grille is itself worked by a series of prominent balconies irregularly distributed on the facades. Some variations in window distribution also avoid any system effect on the wall. These random layouts reinforce the regular and aerial character of the concrete grid, the mesh of which remains relatively small (storey height and window width).
These alterations are already present in the Chicago Tribune tower project drawn in 1922 by Walter Gropius.
To reinforce the curtain wall effect, the railings are filled with semi-transparent reinforced glass. The window sills are made of glazed glass products green celadon reinforcing a certain brightness of the wall.
The building further south forms an angle, a square with three stairwells. The western part faces the perspective of Papety Street; the facade takes up the concrete grid and the same glazed and coloured elements as the tower. The commercial gallery is two storeys, giving a colossal register to this scale of bedrock.
Between the two buildings and in the back of front square, the connection is made by a one-storey building forming garage. The urban profile creates a gap towards Fort Saint-Nicolas. This gap is in the background of the perspective of Rue Charras, it also brings a light from the east on Boulevard Pasteur and of course further detaches the tower from the continuous alignments on the public space.
The continuity of these buildings was a regulatory fact, respected in a planning plan relatively attentive to the urban patterns and templates in place on the Pharo district.
Authors:
Yvon Bentz and André Devin
André Devin Architect (1920-1983), a student of the Bigot workshop, graduated in 1928.
In the thirties, he worked in Marseille with E. Chirié.
He then joined forces with Yvon Bentz, known for his participation in the contest for the stairs of the Saint-Charles station, won by Sénès.
Participating separately in the reconstruction of the demolished districts of the City Hall, their joint production of housing will take place after the war.
Before the Pharo Residence, they had signed Sulfur City together in 1954.
In 1973, they still built Le Riviera, a 101-unit building in the 5th arrondissement.
Associated files:
- Map of the 7th district of Marseille
- Printable Monograph Record
© Thierry Durousseau, 2004-2005