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.
1.1119 - Collet des Comtes
the 11th arrondissement, east of Marseille, along the Huveaune
Literature references: 20th century heritage, domestic architecture
X edition directory number: 1119, p 27. 2005
Conception & writing T. Durousseau arch. 2007
designation: Le Collet des Comtes
56 avenue des Butris, quartier Saint-Marcel 13011
Lambert 3: Lat. 3.11739; Long. 43.297
Access: bus no. 10: Cinq avenues - Les Caillols Hôpital, bus no. 91: metro Timone - Les Caillols Hôpital
Owner: Syndicate of Co-owners
Condominium Manager OTIM SOMERIM
program: Housing group of 102 dwellings.
Client: S.A.R.L. Collet des Comtes, manager Claude Pellat.
Set of 85 "villas".
dates, authors: Building Permits 1970. Corrigendum 1972. Conformity 1973.
André Chrysochéris, architect.
Design office, SOFRAL.
site: On the eastern slope of the Collet south of the Caillols. Altitude between 91.65 and 78.20 m. Initial land of 5.6 ha. Rural area of the Plan d'Urbanisme Directeur of 1949. Ex-ZUP n°3, current ZAC des Caillols.
mass plane: Twinning of two houses then superimposed in layers following the offset of the natural slope of the land. They are distributed in the same orientation along three parallel paths. Spreading from R+2 to R+4.
frame: Concrete wall structure of 0.15 m. Raw concrete facades. Opening to the east on patios, facades of glass rooms, west gables closed on garages. Plantations have grown in importance in the landscape of buildings.
sources: AD: 2071 W 44 (8.908)
Background:
The Collet des Comtes operation was originally programmed throughout the Zone to be urbanized in priority ZUP no. 3. However, the ZUP projects are replaced by the establishment of ZAC (Zone d'aménagement concerté) even before the completion of the ZUP no. 2 for which the architect André Chrysochéris had already worked, author of the Collet des Comtes and probably also at the origin of the programming of the ZUP no. 3, now ZAC des Caillols. Through this legal substitution, the overall project also undergoes modifications, and in this part of the project, will remain only the projection of the villas in band of Collet des Comtes. The large facilities originally planned will not find their place in this CAZ, nor will the 32-unit tower programmed on the Collet hill and included in the building permit filed by A. Chrysochéris.
Beyond the constraints of changing urban legislation of the time, Collet des Comtes is a representative ensemble of the architectural thought of collective housing in Europe. The desire to escape from the large, extremely dense ensemble while preserving the advantages of the bundled fabric is echoed in flagship projects developed at the time by Moshe Safdie at the Montreal World Fair (1987, Canada), Habitat 87, or the Farum Midtpunkt Copenhagen (1974, Denmark) and M'Zab hotels by F. Pouillon (1970, Algeria). The development of a continuous and proliferating fabric even finds its place within the Toulouse-Le-Mirail project of Candilis, Josic and Woods (1966).
Description:
Lined up along three parallel streets, the villas of Collet des Comtes form a set of dwellings superimposed following the gentle natural slope of the land. Each apartment is twinned before being stacked to create a set of mutual roof terraces, and repeated along the three car lanes, contemporary of the project, created west of the Collet hill. Each module, taken in the slope, forms a small pedestrian alley that leads perpendicular to each alley. It is along these alleys that the entrances to the apartments are hidden. The common areas between the adjoining dwellings are really only the separative fences of the gardens and their adjoining wall.
The whole is extremely homogeneous. Once the tower project has been evacuated from the program, the complex is made up of stacked houses, all 5 to 6 rooms, each with 88 and 100 m2 of living space, each with a patio, solarium and garage. They are grouped together in the same plan as the apartment located at the level of the upper aisle.
The 0.15 m concrete wall structure divides the space into three 4.30 m longitudinal bays forming the width of each parking space and subdivided into small open rooms in the apartments. Rooms and the living room are organized around the patio, the kitchen is included in the large volume of the living room while the bathroom and the pantry are against the west closed wall and separated by a counter-Passageway that shares the apartment from north to south from the front door to bump against the partition of one of the bedrooms.
The form of "open pavilions" is symptomatic at the time of a current of thought that wants to free itself from an architecture of towers and bars. However, Collet des Comtes is not the most satisfactory example of this type of program. Indeed, the mono-orientation of elevations does not create the dynamism of a street of the historic city. Closed facades made up of garage doors do not constitute a favourable environment for the development of a neighbourhood life.
Author:
André Chrysocheris,
French architect, born 1915 in Istanbul, student of Paul Tournon, graduated in 1942.
He was enrolled in the Order of Architects in 1953.
He directs in Marseille:
1955-57, social housing building, rue d'Algiers,
1956-57, apartment building, chemin du Rouet,
1957, apartment building, 46b boulevard C. Flammarion,
1957-62, Beauvallon Real Estate Complex, Mazargues,
1958-61, Parc Corot, Saint-Just real estate project,
1960, social housing building, 139 avenue des Olives,
1962, Le Goya real estate project, avenue du Prado with B. Laville, N. Mazoyer and C. Zubiena,
1964, apartment building La Désirée, Le Cabot,
1961-64, real estate project La Mongrane, Saint-Just,
1963, La Rouguière housing group, Saint-Marcel,
1967, real estate project La Sauvagine, Saint-Jérôme,
1971, La Viste 2 apartment building, Saint-Louis,
1972, La Moularde apartment building, Les Caillols,
1972, apartment buildings Le Collet des Comtes,
1974, apartment buildings Les Amaryllis, Notre-Dame Limite.
Associated files:
- Map of the 11th district of Marseille
- Documented Monograph Record
© Thierry Durousseau, 2004-2005