4.1133 - The Experimental Apple
La Pomme west of the 11th arrondissement
Literature references: 20th century heritage, domestic architecture
X edition directory number: 1133, p 28. 2005
Conception & writing T. Durousseau arch. 2007
designation: Apple B or Experimental Apple
avenue du Pontet, quartier de la Pomme 13011
Lambert 3: latitude 3.3.11075; longitude 43.2835
Access: bus 18: Prefecture - Le Bosquet, bus 15: Sainte-Marguerite Dromel - Les Escourtines
metro 2: Bougainville - Sainte-Marguerite Dromel
Owner: OPAC Sud, 80 rue Albe, Marseille 13004, 04 91 12 71 00
program: Housing group of 48 dwellings in experimental operation.
Contracting authority: Office Public d'HLM départemental des Bouches-du-Rhône.
2 buildings: square bars, 5 cages.
dates, authors: Building Permits 1952, 1954 compliance.
Louis Olmeta, architect.
Enterprise Chauvet.
site: This site is located in the north of the Saint-Cyr chain, under the Marseilles canal and next to the HBM Michelis City. Altitude between 65.00 and 66.50 m. Residential area in discontinuous order, Sector E of the Master Town Planning Plan of 1949.
mass plane: Single layer, aligned with the next experimental operation. Spreading: R+4.
frame: Framing of reinforced concrete posts and beams. Floors of steel beams and beams. Facades of fillings and bulkheads. Good general condition.
See notices: 1418 - Le Canet
sources: AD: 2071 W 5 (20.161), 165 W 19, 27, 35, 12 O 318, 7 FTE 254-259
Background:
The notorious success of the Canet operation in 1951 led the Conseil Général des Bouches-du-Rhône to repeat the experiment. He then asked for a series of more dwellings to the same project manager. The experimental nature of this new project is defined by its non-assimilation of low-cost housing standards. The architect, Louis Olmeta, and the company Chauvet, thus see their mission renewed.
The site chosen will be La Pomme, on the site of the Cité Michelis de G. Castel, while a similar experimental operation will be carried out simultaneously at Salon-de-Provence.
The Huveaune valley, with its workers' tradition, remains an area of experimentation in social housing and the implementation of new models in limited quantities. After the HBM Michelis city of 1934, the experimental operation presented here, the first Million type operation launched by the Departmental Office of HLM will be born in 1955 on the same site.
Description:
Located in continuity with the garden city, the 48 dwellings are limited to a linear building that ends in the south by a square element connected to the mother building by loggias.
The construction takes over the three-file pole-beam system already present with the Canet project. The facades are made by a filling which partly passes in front of the posts and doubled inside by a counter partition forming an insulation by an air vacuum. The bays are all formed by prominent prefabricated and relatively thick frames. The roof is more traditional, round tile.
The distribution of the apartments is also based on the principles of the Canet. Unconventional distribution: the kitchen, equipped with a sink and a dining area, is ordered by the living room. This one is separated from the landing by a small entrance airlock itself delimited by a cupboard. Each room is equipped with it.
The damp rooms that overlook the access to the rooms open onto a loggia that brings them natural lighting and ventilation. The bathroom, which is separate from the toilet, and whose walls are covered with earthenware, has a sink, a shower and a bidet. In front of the bathroom (equipped with a water heater), there is a radiant heater to the living room and bedrooms. This personal heating device, which had long been used in this hot country, was abandoned after the winter of 1956.
It is obviously necessary to understand these standards of comfort in relation to those practiced in the "three-window" apartments of Marseilles, the most common at the time. Similarly, let us not forget the severe economic conditions at the time of the project.
Unlike the Canet where the architectural tone played on a certain constructive modernism in the manner of Auguste Perret, the building tries here to a double register. On the one hand, the system of division between the base, the body and the crown is combined with a great repetition of the vertical windows. These are defined by regular rhythms rather classical, like the buildings of the garden city Michelis, without presenting the yet picturesque drops in the popular architecture of pre-war. On the other hand, having neither the pleated facades nor the models of G. Castel’s architecture, L. Olmeta amplifies the relief of the bay frames to give them a stronger presence. In addition, it randomly distributes balconies and loggias on the facade.
The balconies are the extension of the bay frames, the lower part of which would have been as extruded forming a U closed by a locksmith. Three or four prominent balconies punctuate the façade.
As for the loggias, they participate in a recomposition of the entire facade as true motifs: a square shape encompasses three floors of outdoor spaces, a horizontal rectangle of a single level, like a box open on one side, plays with loggias linking with the angular part of the mass plane.
All this is enough to give an answer to the question that plagues French architecture of the third quarter of the twentieth century: repetition and architectural variety. A remark is nevertheless to be made about the colourful reinterpretation of the building: it intensely fragmentes the reading of the project despite the use of a tone that would be unduly joyful.
Author:
Louis Olmeta
born in 1906 in Marseille, he collaborates with P. Tournon.
In 1950 he carried out the experimental operations of the Canet and the Apple and actively participated in the program of Provisional Economic Housing Normalized Abbé Pierre in Saint-Théodore, Larousse Campaign, Madrague-Ville and Vallon des Tuves.
It built in other cities of the department:
Salon, Carry-le-Rouet, 1962 with Robert Nougue,
and Istres in 1964.
In 1955, he finished the Espéroun,
in 1957, he is partner on the Pauline,
In 1959, he built the houses in Bois-Lemaître.
His achievements include his association with G. Candilis on the Viste, with G. Gillet at the Roy d'Espagne.
Associated files:
- Map of the 11th district of Marseille
- Documented Monograph Record
© Thierry Durousseau, 2004-2005
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