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.
1.0929 - Mazargues
Mazargues, 9th Arrondissement
Literature references: 20th century heritage, domestic architecture
X Edition directory number: 0929, p19. 2005
Conception & writing T. Durousseau arch. 2007
designation: Mazargues
Mazargues roundabout, Mazargues district 13009
Lambert 3: latitude 3.0683; longitude 43.2504
Access: metro no. 2: Prado roundabout
bus 47: Sainte-Marguerite Dromel - Vieille Chapelle, bus 4: Sainte-Marguerite Dromel - Valmante
Owner: OPAC Sud, 80 rue Albe, 13234 Marseille Cedex 4
program: Project of 300 dwellings including 136 LOPOFA.
Contracting authority: Office Public d'Habitations à Loyer Modéré des Bouches-du-Rhône.
dates, authors: Building Permits 1954. Delivery 1957.
Jean Rozan and Henri Faure Ladreyt, architects.
Company, Cooperative Worker of Real Estate Construction.
site: Site of the Obelisk, old garden Beauchêne tree. Altitude between 31.00 and 37.00 m, gentle slope towards the southeast. Residential area discontinuous G on the Urban Plan Director of 1949.
mass plane: Organized on the paths of the garden and front built on the roundabout of Mazargues. Spreading: bar R+4, block R+15.
frame: Reinforced concrete frame, filling insulated and bulkhead blocks. Prefabricated bay frames. Distribution by passageways. Stone facade on the roundabout. Good general condition.
cf. records: 1301 - The Olives 1326 - The Lindens
sources: AD: 2071 W 10 (33.567), 165 W 98, 12 O 336, 7 FTE 232-233
Marseille Magazine no. 29
Background:
At the beginning of the 20th century, Mazargues was a working-class district, linked to the Perasso quarries, but also a space of countryside and bastides. After the war, several emergency cities settled there more or less spontaneously. The demand for social housing will remain strong.
The grounds of the Saint-Jacques property were landscaped since the eighteenth century without the castle ever being built on the roundabout of Mazargues, where is implanted the commemorative symbol of a real Egyptian obelisk, Jacques Park had a portal opening directly into the public domain. Watered by Gouffonne, the French garden included terraces, hedges of boxwood and a piece of water to the east of the ground. Organized around a large meadow bordered by double rows of plane trees and cedars of high forest, the park drew a perspective of several hundred meters. The idea of making the park accessible was fought by the Hygiene Services for mainly ideological reasons.
Description:
Jean Rozan’s plan seeks to border the roundabout with an urban construction thus marking an entrance into the city. Inside, he composes with the cedar alley, aligning in parallel a long open bar to the southeast.
The urban building is reached by a wide walkway covering the ramps to the garages. A large glass transparency, including the entrances, lets guess the perspective of the park below.
The facade is free of any decoration and projection and has simple windows with sills. The south-east gable is thickened by a return span to reinforce the building’s monolithic impression. The frame is of reinforced concrete and the facade is of stone lined with a counter partition. The holes give an effect of bays, composed of square windows and a little wider for stays. This irregularity, the only sign of a domestic architecture, is troubling for a building designed to be a solid solid mass forming an urban door.
To the north-west, the gable stacks loggias with curved sills whose bottom had to be coloured.
The north-east facade overlooks the perspective of the garden, it is coated and carved with loggias.
At the foot of the building, a large terrace lined with monumental jars forms the base of the building including cellars, garages, various premises.
The long bar is treated in a very different register. It is first of all a Popular and Family Housing program, an improved version of the Million Operations created in 1955. It is probably this social dimension which has given rise to the greatest reluctance for the building permit.
The architect projects here a real economic standard that he will reuse for several housing programs at costs lower than HLM financing.
The influence remains linked to HBM housing, with however an improved level of equipment. One of the features of these dwellings, in addition to the regularity of the recends, is the association in the same span of the kitchen and the sanitary. This arrangement leads to the grouping of two twin windows, separated by a thin trumeau and grouped in the same prefabricated frame.
Finally this long bar, intersected by two transparencies, is punctuated by portals of stone buildings covered with a gendarme hat motif whose only local example seems to be the docks of Paulin Talabot on the quay of the Lazaret. We can also think of the Maritime Gendarmerie built by J. Rozan and which uses ornamental motifs of this nature.
The garden will remain unchanged, and a series of cross-sections testify to the attention paid to the connection between the buildings, the majestic alleys and the meadow.
Author:
Jean Rozan (1887-1977),
At the age of 21, Marseilles chose to study architecture at the Beaux Arts de Paris in the Pontremoli workshop.
The War interrupted his studies, he completed his diploma in 1919. Installed in Marseille in 1920, he designed the offices of the Compagnie Paquet, those of the Compagnie de Navigation Mixte and the Gendarmerie barracks of Cape Janet.
In 1936, with the nationalization of aeronautics, he built the Green Factories of S.N.C.A.S.E around the Étang de Berre, in which Jean Prouvé participated.
He will also carry out the TSF relay of the Réaltor, the Soufflerie of the Laboratory of Fluid Mechanics and the Institute of Biochemistry of Saint-Charles.
Winner, with Castel, Allard, and Gensollen of the competition for the Pavillon de la Provence (International Exhibition of 1937), he became architect of the Chamber of Commerce then in 1948 architect of the Comité Interprofessionnel de Logement des Bouches-du-Rhône.
After the war, he rebuilt the base of Notre-Dame de La Garde, partially destroyed during the fighting.
From the 1950s onwards, it carried out major social housing programmes, including:
La Blancarde, 80 accommodations for the CIL, 1952,
La Marine Blanche, 120 units with B. Martin Chave, 1953,
Lou Trioulet, 257 dwellings for the departmental OPHLM with P. Faure Ladreyt, 1954,
La Paquerette, 1956,
Les Rosiers Residence, 727 units for CIL, 1957,
Les Tilleuls, 391 dwellings for the departmental OPHLM, 1958,
Les Olives, 431 dwellings for the departmental OPHLM, 1960.
As Group Leader of the Industrial Sector:
The Blue Navy, 788 homes, 1958,
Lévêque Campaign, 806 homes, 1959,
Prado Parc, 245 units with P. Faure Ladreyt, 1961,
The Aygalades, 598 dwellings for the departmental OPHLM, 1965.
Associated files:
- Map of the 9th district of Marseille
- Documented Monograph Record
© Thierry Durousseau, 2004-2005