1.1428 - Super Lookout
Saint-Gabriel, outside the city centre
Literature references: 20th century heritage, domestic architecture
X edition directory number: 1428, p 40. 2005
Conception & writing T. Durousseau arch. 2007
designation: Belvedere or Super Belvedere Residence
57 rue Merlino, quartier Saint-Gabriel 13013
Lambert 3: latitude 3.0480; longitude 43.3218
Access: bus 89 Canebière - Le Canet
Owner: Super Belvedere Condominiums
Trustee: Paul Stein Law Office, 29 boulevard V. Delpuech 13006
program: Set of 160 Popular and Family Housing (LOPOFA).
Client: Société Civile Immobilière Bon Secours.
Set of 3 buildings and garages.
dates, authors: Favourable opinion of the Ministry: 1955. Completion: 1957.
G. Candilis, A. Josic, S. Woods and Guy Brunache and C. Giampietri, architects.
Henri Piot and Paul Dony, engineers.
PRE Enterprises.
site: Close to the industrial activities of the Canet. On the west bank of the Bon Secours plateau, between Les Rosiers and the Paul Strauss group. Altitude between 59.30 and 53.90 m . Residential area discontinued E on the Master Urban Plan of 1949.
mass plane: Location in front on north-south redents, panoramic view of the bay of Marseille. Buildings oriented north-south systematically. Distribution in half-levels adapting to the slope. Spreading: Constant height, R+4 on cellars.
frame: Concrete constructions, walls and floors with concrete block facades. Distribution stairs in articulation between buildings. Generative typologies with few balcony and loggia spaces. Very good general condition.
cf. records: 1220 - The Duke - 1308 - Minor Seminar
sources: AD: 2071 W 9 (32.729, 32.446), 165 W 71
Superbelvedere, amateur film by Henri Moret
Background:
As a result of the relocation campaign initiated by Abbé Pierre in February 1954, the Economic Housing of First Necessity was created and quickly described as a new slum. A year later, Operation Million (one-for-a-million housing) was launched as a model scheme for the working poor "who could not afford the profitability rents associated with low-cost housing with ordinary standards". Thus, the Standardized Economic Housing (LEN) imagined in 1953 are reactivated. In Marseilles, where several hundred LEPN will be built, Million operations will develop in thousands of homes, with signatures of architects like J. Rozan, P. Yard or P. Francescini. G. Candilis, first prize of the national competition, will realize no less than 2500 Standard Economic Housing between the Paris Region and the Bouches-du-Rhône. Quickly cities will indirectly help the construction of housing Million improved(Popular and Family Housing) intended for workers a little less poor who will be entitled to better benefits. This will be the case of the Residence Belvedere, LOPOFA, corresponding to a small accession to the property. The operation which obtains an approval from the Ministry of Reconstruction and Housing in Paris does not seem to have needed a building permit dossier. Several variants seem to have been studied including one of fourteen floors, to finish with the four-storey model we know.
Description:
It is difficult to describe Candilis' project without referring to the body of doctrine he developed for the competition. G. Candilis knows Marseille for having participated in the construction of the Radiant City. One of the founders of Team Ten, he distanced himself from Le Corbusier at the last International Congress of Modern Architecture (CIAM), favouring the notion of housing over that of housing. He directed the Builders' Workshop (ATBAT) in Morocco where he discovered the continuous urban fabric of North African housing, analysed by Mr. Ecochard. All this makes it one of the first criticisms of the monumentality of the great ensemble.
However, it remains of a great modern rationality, giving priority to the organization of the plan that articulates the functions served: rooms, stays designed to be able to evolve, and servant functions (bathrooms, kitchens) for which it seeks maximum efficiency for feeding, venting and ventilation.
The distribution corridors have disappeared, in favor of a double network of controlled circulations which, from the living room, reach the rooms by a lock; or else pass from the kitchen to the rooms by the bathroom which has a double door. The common areas are extremely small, the common staircase is built between the gables of the building, distributing two apartments on each half-floor by a short passageway. Open to the open air, the staircase is a real hinge that allows to adapt to the slopes of the ground thanks to the half-levels. The articulation of the staircase makes it possible to generate types of buildings by resurfacing and removals of buildings, or by means of a system of successive removals.
The structural frames are economical and short spans, between 2.60 m and 3.20 m for walls 15, 20 and 25 cm thick. The supporting structure is made of both reinforced concrete and cement chipboard. The facades have some thermal insulation thanks to coated pouzzolane cinder blocks. An improvement of the sound insulation is achieved by interposition of glass wool between the parquet and the concrete slab.
The design of the facades is part of the language of modern architecture where the bay no longer results from the drilling of a wall but from the interval delimited by the structure (columns, headboards) and the floors on the one hand, and on the other hand autonomous filling panels.
In the competition dossier, the architects write that the window is no longer a hole in a wall, but an organic and plastic element". They will differentiate the light outlet determined by a transom running on the ceiling on the width of the room, and the view on the outside by a window door whose lightening is glazed, allowing even children to see outside. This arrangement will form the solid part of the wall, a panel covering only a part of the facade and delineating horizontal and vertical voids. By association and grouping, a motif forming the frame of the design of the facade is formed that is more generated than composed.
The Super Belvedere residence is the only one of the three groups of Marseilles dwellings from the Million competition to have retained, even partially, the original facade design and especially the current imposts. For other groups, landlords and architects have largely and systematically transformed the architecture of Candilis, Josic and Woods.
However, Super Belvédère was also the subject of a major renovation entirely financed by the co-owners, and which maintained the architectural character of the buildings. It is today the only witness of this serial, popular and modern architecture of the period, and as such, it is exemplary. The case is rare enough not to mention the trustee’s active role in rehabilitation.
Authors:
Georges Candilis, architect (1913-1995),
will return several times to Marseille between 1947 and 1960.
1947-52, Chantier de la Cité Radieuse, he meets S. Woods with whom he associates. He participates in ATBAT-Morocco in the work of Mr. Ecochard on the Habitat Collectif Méditerranéen,
1949, Eternit Pavilion at the Marseille Fair,
1953, CIAM IX in Aix en Provence,
1954, participates in the constitution of Team Ten, meets A. Josic who will join his team,
1955, Million Competition in Marseille, Bon Secours, Minor Seminary with J. M. Sourdeau, The Duke,
1956-61, 1,800 units in Bagnols-sur-Cèze with C. Delfante,
1958, Concours des 4000, Malpassé, Saint-Barthélemy, La Viste,
1960, Competition for the extension of the City Hall of the city of Marseille,
1961, Le Mirail in Toulouse,
1962, Le Petit Nice in Aix-en-Provence,
1963, Les Muriers à Manosque.
Camille Giampietri, architect
1958, apartment building, Saint-Loup, Marseille,
1963, real estate in Tarascon,
1964, apartment building, Merlan Road, Marseille.
Associated files:
- Map of the 14th arrondissement of Marseille
- Printable Monograph Record
© Thierry Durousseau, 2004-2005
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