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.
9.0807 - Cantini
8th district, seaside south of the city
references documentaries: 20th century heritage, domestic architecture
X edition directory number: 0807, p 14. 2005
Conception & writing T. Durousseau arch. 2007
designation: Cantini, 62 avenue J. Cantini, 10-18 rue Gaz du Midi, quartier du Rouet 13008
Lambert 3: latitude 3.05266; longitude 43.2826
Access: bus 18: Prefecture - Le Bosquet
bus 43: Castellane - Sainte-Marguerite Dromel, bus 50: Castellane - Les Escourtines
Owner: Syndicate of co-owners 74 avenue J. Cantini, 13008, Marseille
program: Housing group of 144 units.
Contracting authority: SAI for the construction of J. Cantini Avenue.
Building of 7 entrances, parking, annexes rue Gaz du Midi.
dates, authors: Building permits: 1955. Declaration of completion of works: 1957.
A.J. Dunoyer de Segonzac, R. Dabat, architects, H. Sauvaire and B.E.R.T.
Rave and Viaud companies.
site: Facing the Gare de l'est, today Parc du 26e Centenaire, access to the east motorway. Altitude between 22.00 m (avenue Cantini) and 16.00 m (rue Gaz du Midi). Residential area in continuous order, Sector B of the Master Planning Plan of 1949.
mass plane: Aligned building, office tablecloth and parking on rue Gaz du Midi.
Spreading: R+10.
frame: Exposed supporting structure on the façade, columns, beams, wobbly concrete forming separative of apartments. Carpeted panels forming model nature. Pretty good general condition.
sources: AD: 2071 W 9 (32.950), 165 W 117, 74 J 87-88; 89 J 21-28, 102-118
Architecture Guide, Marseille, 1945-1993 : M.H. Biget, J. Sbriglio, Parentheses, 1993
Prado Magazine No. 9, 1979
Background:
The Rouet district is still largely industrial during the construction of the Cantini building, the eastern station is still a freight station, but is no longer connected to the port by the ferry and the tunnel. The Master Plan of Urban Planning of 1949 defines the arrival of the eastern motorway on Cantini Avenue near Castellane Square. It provides for a Type J industrial sector where the construction of dwellings may be authorized. Fifty years later, with the help of the Marseilles industrial crisis, residential buildings reached the right bank of the avenue.
In 1952, LOGECO funding was created: construction grants to create standardized private housing. Thanks to this funding, the Cantini building was able to be implemented.
Description:
The building follows the alignment on the Cantini avenue already implemented above, towards Castellane, where Delbes, Arati and Boyer carry out housing programs. The back fabric of the island is largely saturated with low constructions and the western part of the land is dedicated to the activity areas (agency of Roger Dabat). A real estate store is even located in the south, on the corner of Rue Gaz du Midi.
The succession of plans shows a study taken up to reach the constructive rationality of execution that will become a recurring theme of the yard. This will be divided into task units: technical specifications and planning remain linked.
The building juxtaposes different cages distributing two through dwellings per floor. They follow a distribution of two 3 rooms or a 3 room and 5 rooms, the south gable being reserved for very large dwellings. The relatively small size of the housing comes from an economic and functional concern: the application of a standard type of minimum surface area.
The barrier effect with the Rouet district, following the construction according to the alignment, is attenuated thanks to a large transparency on the ground floor of the gallery and its stilts cut in the facade veil.
The gallery gathers the seven cages and opens onto the terrace covering the activities of the Gaz du Midi street.
The facade, which is partly the result of the 0.20m sail construction system, ends with 0.40 columns and a 5.00m gap. The subdivisions of the bulkhead are wedged on the mullions of the carpeted frames. This solution, rather fragile from a phonical point of view, becomes problematic when crossing the separatives between the dwellings. One of the authors' research themes, also implemented for Bel Horizon, concerns the prefabrication of exterior carpentry. Arranged in carpeted panels assembled inside the building, the joineries constitute a kind of curtain wall inserted in the frame of the main work whose concrete remains raw casting. The panels that integrate a strip of lightening and the strip containing the roller shutters take on a relief that associate them with the model of concrete spans.
However, the regular facade is not free of composition. The concept of register is sufficiently marked: a balcony in high floor file of the second floor delimiting a base and transforms the first floor into mezzanine. The coronation is drawn with a simple indent on the alignment in continuous profile.
The full body of the facade is also decorated with a motif of three superimposed balconies whose only reason is to compose a regular facade. One can evoke here a modern icon, that of the competition of 1922 for the Chicago Tribune by Walter Gropius whose weft facade is enhanced by salient floors forming as many accentuations on the purified volumes.
Authors:
André Jacques Dunoyer de Segonzac,
born in Paris in 1915, graduated in 1942 in the Beaudouin workshop,
1949, Block XIV, 49 houses reconstruction, 13002,
1951, Strasbourg Competition, Industrial Sector, awarded with P. Vago and P. Dupré,
1952, Mass plan for Saint-Gabriel (Industrial Sector), at this period the cathedral of Saint-Domingue will retain all the attention of the architect,
1955, Plan for the Sauvagère,
1956, Bel Horizon, 133 units, 13003,
1962, Bernabo, 89 dwellings 13015,
1971, Aou Plan, 915 dwellings, 13015,
1973, Saumaty Residence, 145 units, 13016,
1978, Plan for Bonneveine.
Roger Dabat,
born in 1925 in the Pyrénées-Orientales, graduated in 1953, he is associated with A.J. Dunoyer for Plan d'Aou and the Cathedral of Santo Domingo.
Associated files:
- Map of the 8th district of Marseille
- Documented Monograph Record
© Thierry Durousseau, 2004-2005