Fos-sur-Mer - La Fenouillère, technical directorate of SPSE
- department: Bouches-du-Rhône
- Municipality: Fos-sur-Mer
- naming: La Fenouillère, technical directorate of SPSE
- address : La Fenouillère Route d'Arles
- author: Henri-Jean CALSAT (architect)
- date: 1968
- protection: unprotected building
- label patrimoine XXe: Commission régionale du patrimoine et des sites (CRPS) du 3 July 2012
SPSE is the Southern European Pipeline Company - around twenty oil companies - that supplies France but also Switzerland, Germany and Luxembourg, from Fos-sur-Mer, via Lyon and Strasbourg. The elaborate architecture of the oil pipeline control building, signed by architect Henri-Jean Calsat, is in the middle of the industrial area of Fos.
The Fenouillère building is on the edge of an oil depot (40 tanks). A water mirror reflects the main building.
One approaches the building by its south-east gable: a beautiful ochre limestone wall, probably of the Fontvielle stone, laid in alternate beds on three floors crowned with a hollow attic covered with a concrete slab faceted. The gable is highlighted by a base of white concrete laid on a slate carpet opus incertumThe slate floor extends to the level of the basin’s coping, the primary role of which is to clean up the ground where the water tables are found.
In return, the north-east facade has its registers: the ochre limestone shell on the three floors, here regularly incised with quinconce openings in the form of loopholes, surmounted by the blue pleated of its concrete roof, and the base, a long mosaic of glass paste. The base, centered on the canopy of the entrance framed by two glass panels, is itself separated from the full stone body by a glass band interrupted by the columns of the structure.
The mosaic in sectile opus is composed of interlaced spindles that cut out colorful beaches: burnt siena, washed sand, shady earth, sage grey, olive green and linden. This unsigned mural is not only decorative, it also has an architectural role. Unlike stone beds, the coloured beaches abolish the materiality of the wall, and let the building float.
The north-west gable is at all points similar to that of the south-east, except for its base which has remained in the state, fixed on its two piles of white concrete. To the south-east and north-west, the orientation of the building suggests an attention to the inclement weather. The rains of the sea and the winds of the Crau meet here only blind gables.
The fourth side of the building overlooks the large pool. This one, about a hundred meters on the side, is a little wider than the building; its rampant banks are clad in concrete plates animated by Crau pebbles. With its 6500 m2, it acts as a drainage basin and a reserve of green water in case of fire. But in fact it also plays the role of a huge mirror of water.
We recognize the blue concrete folds of the base coronation, we discern the mosaic, tinted this time in turquoise, cerulean blue, bottle green, grey of linen and rust ochre, but the full body of white facade, stands out in this colorful environment. The sun visor harrow has enough depth to create reverberations between the white concrete slats and the basin, and to mask the building’s clean facade.
The device, detached from the wall, seems cut for the search for shade. It combines on three storey heights about forty vertical blades of white, thin and deep concrete. Horizontal wind screens complemented by front masks in clear aluminium, all housed in the intervals of the panels, complete this grid. Behind this moucharabieh, the facade consists of natural aluminum windows, lined with venetian blinds with adjustable blades; the lighters and mullions are coated with black glass pastes.
Effective machinery to moderate the ardour of the sunset, it is also a visual artifact. Emerging from this dark wall, the whiteness of the concrete slats makes them like a colonnade without base, in balance, just covered by the blue pleated cover. This device, in fruitful dialogue with the waters of the basin, has the calm abstraction of a drawing.
We understand that this filtering facade, beyond its mere materiality, also plays with the elements that surround it: the direct solar radiation of the west, the cooling of the walls by the water, Finally, protection against direct insolation of the terrace by means of a double ventilated roof.
What Le Corbusier described as a parasol slab is treated here by a rather complex pleated surface since the pleated is both longitudinal, a bit like sheds, but also transversal, like sheds without chelus. The fold improves the rigidity of the surfaces, its repetition produces a ripple, so we are in a double ripple surface. Beyond the structural economy, the fold has a visual effect, that of modifying the apparent contour of surfaces. Each fold forms a crest line that masks a part of the surface, transforming the perception of the forms themselves. Baroque architects and fashion designers know this well. Hence the undulating appearance of the bottom of the parasol slab which, with its frosty blue, takes on a vaporous appearance.
Everything helps to lighten the building: the mosaics, the sun breaks, and the overcrowding, only the stone shell of the walls exposed to the wind and rain shows a certain inertia… but an inertia that does not touch earth.
- Editor: Thierry Durousseau, 2011
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