Marseille 5e - Sulfur City
- department: Bouches-du-Rhône
- municipality: Marseille
- naming: Sulfur City
- address: 88 cours Gouffé
- author: Yvan BENTZ, André DEVIN (architects)
- date: 1954
- protection: unprotected building
- label patrimoine XXe: Commission régionale du patrimoine et des sites (CRPS) du 16 November 2006
Located in an industrial district in search of greater notoriety, the Gouffé course was the subject, in the 1950s, of a housing construction project, which was part of a redefinition of urban routes east of Marseille. Sulfur City is a housing group of 114 housing units that owes its name to the pre-existence of a former sulphur plant at its site.
Occupying a triangular terrain, the operation consists of three buildings: a 17-storey tower overlooking two horizontal buildings, mainly occupied by duplexes. To reinforce the architectural coherence between the three buildings, architects André Devin and Yvan Bentz built a small square, serving as a forecourt to the tower and lined with shops. The tower is characterized by its regular plan, its slender profile and its façades drawn by a fine concrete crosslinked structure. Behind this concrete grille, on which drawer balconies stand out, the carpeted panels give the impression of a continuous glass surface. On the roof, technical and superstructure objects, including a cantilevered tank, are piled up, which accentuates the building’s verticality.
The Sulfur City adopts a modern architectural language but tempered by a desire to integrate the project in the surrounding space and in urban reflection. To the tripartite organization, which evokes the Bauhaus of Dessau by Walter Gropius, is added the influence of the radiant city of Le Corbusier, just completed.
- Editor: Thierry Durousseau, architect, 2006
Read also in Heritage of the 20th century, the study Marseille, ensembles and residences from 1955/1975
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