Architectural Anthem for Marseille
We do not always realize it, but the port city of Marseille is a fertile ground for exceptional architectural creations. Besides that Marseille is the largest trading port in France, the largest industrial center and the second largest city in the country, it is also a place, which age is more than 26 centuries, and where numerous monuments of the cultural, architectural and historical heritage of France are also concentrated. The abundance of architectural sights of the city is so manifold that it would take a whole week to go sightseeing at least half of them. Not only in ancient times, but over the past hundred years, the city has repeatedly inspired the greatest masters of the genre to create outstanding architectural creations.
In keeping with this heritage, by Jean Nouvel forms part of an urban landscape marked by striking buildings, such as Unité d’Habitation by Le Corbusier, Fernand Pouillon’s apartment blocks in the Old Port, Mucem by Rudy Ricciotti, Villa Méditerranée by Stefano Boeri, Sir Norman Foster’s Ombrière – a symbol of the renewal of the Old Port – or even the FRAC contemporary art center by Kengo Kuma.
Located at Les Quais d’Arenc, facing the sea and reaching to the sky, La Marseillaise by Jean Nouvel is the little sister of Zaha Hadid’s CMA CGM Tower, located just opposite. It also neighbors Les Docks de la Joliette, which were renovated by the architect Eric Castaldi in the 1990s and then restructured more recently by the Italian agency Alfonso Femia 5+1AA, as well as the Balthazar apartment block by Roland Carta, the architect who worked with Rudy Ricciotti on the renovation of Fort Saint-Jean (the historic part of Mucem). It is also close to the Euromed Center, by the Italian architect Massimiliano Fuksas, which forms the cornerstone of the Euroméditerranée urban development plan for Marseille.
La Marseillaise, a flagship architectural project for the largest urban development in southern Europe, Euroméditerranée, and the second act of major renovation project Les Quaisd’Arenc.
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