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.
1.1108 - Bel Ombre
the 11th arrondissement, east of Marseille, along the Huveaune
Literature references: 20th century heritage, domestic architecture
X Edition directory number: 1108, p 26. 2005
Conception & writing T. Durousseau arch. 2007
designation: Bel Ombre Park
546 boulevard Mireille Lauze, avenue E. Allard, quartier de La Pomme 13011
Lambert 3: latitude 3.10107; longitude 43.2884
Access: metro 1: La Rose - La Timone
bus 12: La Timone - Eoures , bus 40: La Timone - Aubagne station, bus 91: La Timone - Les Caillols Hospital
Owner: Syndic de Copropriété du Parc Bel Ombre, 04 91 44 91 32
program: Project of 250 dwellings, type LOGECO.
Builder: Société Immobilière de Construction et de Préfabrication du sud-est.
Set of 2 buildings, shops and garages, caretaker’s house.
dates, authors: Building Permits: 1959. Declaration of Completion: 1965.
Alfred Henry, architect.
Enterprise, SICPSE.
site: At the eastern entrance of the village of La Pomme and north of the highway. Between the stadium and the bed of the Huveaune. Altitude between 34.43 and 39.35 m. Residential area discontinued E on the Master Town Planning Plan of 1949.
mass plane: The orientation seems chosen to avoid the effects of the mistral. If the apartment building stands out in a monumental way, it remains linked to a small shopping center on Avenue Mireille Lauze that overtakes the slope with a garage tablecloth. To the east, the garden area of the bastide is maintained. To the west, parking lots. Spreading: constant height, 16 floors on cellars.
frame: Concrete constructions, posts and floors with carpeted panel facades. Vertical circulations separated from the building. Attic recessed. Pinion decorated. Fairly good general condition.
sources: AD: 2071 W 14 (42.367), 165 W 340
Background:
In the spring of 1953, the former mayor of Le Havre, Pierre Courant, initiated a series of measures to promote the rapid and massive construction of new housing by incorporating a land law with a new method of financing and standardized programming.
The creation of Popular and Family Economic Housing (LOGECO) was aimed at modest incomes (victims or poorly housed) to finance the purchase of housing responding to standard plans that can be resold or rented for moderate amounts.
The realization of the project of Bel Ombre will be in this context with the sale of land bastidaires at the entrance of the village of La Pomme, devalued by the motorway projects of the A 50. The density of the program will give rise to some fears, but the arrival of the returnees from Algeria will definitely start its implementation, a sort of Cité Radieuse bis to the east of the city, whose monumental character is still noticeable from the urban expressway east of Marseille.
Description:
If the main building dominates the site, the composition of the mass plan articulates several elements of the context, the alley of the bastide, the avenue Mireille Lauze and the direction of the Mistral. The gate of the bastide is still in place with its heavy pedestals, from there an alley of plane trees reaching six meters below the meadows on the edge of the Huveaune.
The two directions of the alley and the avenue determine a pointed islet on which is located the shopping center whose buildings in turn follow the alignment of the alley. The slope is bought by a tablecloth of two levels of covered car parks forming the slab of the mall. The main building is located at right angles with the plane tree alley, corresponding to the exact orientation of the Mistral, contrary to the Cité Radieuse oriented on the boulevard Michelet in relation to the geographical north. Another cardinal variation is that of the facades with shooting balconies to the west, and to the east, the horizontal and vertical distributions of the apartments that evoke the achievements of G. Candilis in North Africa.
In 1954-55, G.Candilis realized in Algeria the Nid d'Abeille and Sémiramis buildings as well as the Trèfle building, more dense and dedicated only to "Europeans". All have in common to seek to find a continuous built structure from arrangements of dwellings inspired by the patio house, in the suite of villas corbuséens buildings. Functional housing, the development of the plan is done by dissociating specific elements such as the circulations serving the dwellings or the columns of equipment distributing the wet rooms.
The service is done mainly by passageways that organize strongly the facade is in horizontal or vertical circular spaces.
It is this style of facade that distinguishes the building of Alfred Henry. The functional dissociation detaches the vertical circulations of the building body into a column whose section envelops landings, staircases, elevators and even empty spaces in a common outline.
The connecting gateways to the passageways are staggered, every other floor, forming a complex lattice connecting the columns to the facades.
The whole constitutes a facade circulated, a sort of staging of the comings and goings of the inhabitants who enter and leave their homes. It is one of the building’s successes to be inhabited by the slightest passage as in public space, it is also one of the modern dreams that this move in space, this architectural walk. The Radiant City encloses these dark passageways, The Roses create platforms subdividing the volumes; here, the passageways scratch the wall in the rising, spared by the Mistral.
At the bottom, the entries are made of simple volumes in penetration with the column. The toponymy of the entrances naturally evokes the lighthouses of Faraman, Sicié or Planier.
The building floor, of reduced right-of-way, is very open by transparencies alternating with technical premises surmounted by a complete level of cellars. The facades are pierced by oblique concrete winds that make up the thickness of the current floors.
The west façade is unsurprising, alternating opaque and transparent railing forming a partition in beaches close to that of the Radiant City.
Finally, the attic is set back, giving way to private apartments (penthouses) with large terraces. Above, the roof emergences are architected by openwork volumes and a kiosk that houses ventilations. A cut sign disturbs the reading of this line of sky, as for the south gable, blind by the proximity of the highway, it is decorated with a mural, very visible from it.
Author:
Alfred Henry,
born in 1920 in La Londe (Var), this architect’s son graduated in 1946 from the workshops of E. Beaudouin and N. Lemaresquier. He then went to the United States, to the University of Chicago, where he followed the teaching of Mies van der Rohe.
He was ordained in 1949. Most of his work is in Toulon.
His accomplishments include residential buildings:
Le Beaulieu, 1959,
Elisabeth, Hope, 1960 (Las Bridge),
The Foch but also the Caisse d'Épargne and the municipal swimming pool in the 1970s (informed by J.C. Bruno).
In Marseille, he built several buildings:
1956-60, Le Foch 13004, apartment building,
1958-62, Le Joffre, Les Chartreux 13012, apartment building, with Pierre Jaume,
1962, apartment building, boulevard Sakakini - chemin Saint-Jean-du-Désert, Le Camas 13005,
1963, The Super Vallier 13004, apartment building, with Georges Lefevre,
1960-64, apartment building, 4 boulevard Icard, Vivaux Bridge 13010 with Pierre Jaume.
Associated files:
- Map of the 11th district of Marseille
- Documented Monograph Record
© Thierry Durousseau, 2004-2005