Regional context
During the Second World War, two major cities of the French Mediterranean coast were affected by the destruction: Marseille and Toulon.
At the Liberation, an identical problem arises for these two cities: the reconstruction of the waterfront.
The reconstruction of the port of Marseille carried out by architects Auguste Perret and Fernand Pouillon, from 1951, is often compared to that of Toulon because the two programs have the same stake: the creation of a new waterfront in which the town hall must be inserted.
In Marseille as in Toulon, the waterfront consists of an alignment of buildings of rectangular plan arranged on either side of a town hall. The constructions are made of reinforced concrete and the facades, dressed in cut stone, are animated by loggias and decorated with claustras. In 1993, one of the buildings in this complex was listed as a historic monument.
At the same time, the architect Le Corbusier built in Marseille, from 1947, the Housing Unit known as Cité Radieuse, considered to be the most advancedguardian and innovative of the M.R.U. This experimental construction allows its architect to express the technical and plastic potential of all his research in collective housing taking into account the social dimension of architecture by integrating what he calls for extensions of the home, namely: shops (grocery, bakery, hotel, etc.), a kindergarten, a gymnasium, etc. To streamline the construction, he creates a revolutionary system of norms based on the proportions of the human body, called "Modulor". Decried by the Marseillais to the point of naming it The house of the Fada, the Cité Radieuse was the first historical monument of the 20th century in the PACA region. For years its inhabitants, attentive to its heritage interest, actively participate in its valorization and conservation.
Partager la page