Marseille 14th - HBM Group Paul Strauss
- department: Bouches-du-Rhône
- municipality: Marseille
- naming: HBM Group Paul Strauss
- address: course of Lorraine - place L. Dalmas - chemin de Gibbes
- authors: François CLERMONT and Joseph HUOT (architects)
- date: 1921
- protection: unprotected building
- label patrimoine XXe: Commission régionale du patrimoine et des sites (CRPS) of 28 November 2000
In 1932, the Loucheur Act was passed to allow 200,000 homes to be built and to offer attractive loans to individuals. It was in this context that François Clermont was entrusted with the construction of several housing projects in Bon Marché, the "HBM", in the Bouches-du-Rhône department.
The HBM Paul Strauss group was built on rough terrain that caused significant construction constraints. The initial project, carried out in the 1920s, proposed several tight buildings, but the architect, in collaboration with Joseph Huot, finally opted for adjoining buildings, in the same spirit as the HBM of Istres, which he had just built with A. Bossu. Today, the Paul Strauss group presents itself as a continuous 5-storey building, trapezoidal in shape, almost closed around a courtyard. Several passageways, semi-circular, pierced in the basement floor, allow to enter the courtyard from the street. The facades are pierced by numerous openings and animated by recesses, at the level of the stairwells, and projections, at the level of the balconies. The ground floor is distinguished from the floors by colour schemes and a continuous table boss treatment. On the courtyard side, the façade receives a similar treatment, it is pierced by large windows at the level of the apartments and narrower windows at the level of the stairwells. The whole is built along two avenues, which induces its bent shape. The building is covered with hollow mechanical tiles, and the corner of the building is dominated by a pediment in "gendarme hat" that creates a visual signal in the urban landscape.
The structure is based on the principle of metal reinforcements supporting concrete floors. The interior division is based on a "standard span" of two dwellings on either side of a stairwell.
- Editor: Sylvie Denante, drac paca crmh, 2000