Marseille: The Latest Architecture and News

+ 12

+ 29

In 2020, the French city of Marseille is set to host Manifesta 13, the European Biennial of Contemporary Art. In preparation for the event, MVRDV has collaborated with thinktank The Why Factory (directed by MVRDV co-founder Winy Maas) in unveiling “The Grand Puzzle,” a 1200-page interdisciplinary pre-biennial research study of the urban potential for Marseille.

MVRDV produced the study through deep analyses of the city, such as interviews and spatial data, culminating in suggestions for possible urban interventions. As part of this engagement, the firm worked with The Why Factory, founded as “the think tank on the future city” at Technical University Delft, who collaborated with local architecture and design schools on the study. Having received overwhelmingly positive feedback, the work will now be “contextualized, analyzed, and refined as it becomes a tool for Marseillais to imagine possible futures for their city.” In addition, the study will serve as a point of inspiration for artistic and cultural interventions both before and during the Manifesta biennial.

The Jean Nouvel-designed La Marseillaise has been completed, decorating the skyline of Marseille, France with 27 shades of red, white, and blue concrete. Standing at 135 meters, the 31-story office tower contains a business restaurant, nursery, and retail.

The scheme sits in proximity to the CMA CGM Headquarters, which was the first Zaha Hadid Architects-designed tower to be built.

+ 9

Architect Philipp Mohr has led the renovation of an apartment at Le Corbusier’s iconic Unite d’Habitation in Berlin, carried out to the architect’s original design. Over the course of two years, Mohr’s team engaged with archival research, antique shopping, and the surveying of the Unite d’Habitation Marseille in France.

Mohr purchased the apartment in 2016 and embarked on a journey of demolition, measurement, and extensive renovation including lowering ceilings and moving walls in order to recreate the interior likely envisioned by Le Corbusier.

+ 18

NP2F, in collaboration with Marion Bernard, Point Supreme and Jacques Lucan, has won the competition for a new institute on Porte d’Aix Plaza in Marseille, France. A combination of research and education at a Mediterranean scale, the Mediterranean Institute of Cities and Territories will link three programmatic volumes: the Atelier Building, the Forum Building and the Experimentation and Research Building. The three forms compound a "progressive system and precise composition" oriented around a Y-shaped courtyard.

Foster + Partners has won the competition to design a new extension to Marseille Airport that will allow the building to process up to 12 million passengers a year. The 2-phase design will add a new central pavilion to the existing building—which comprises the original 1960s structure designed by Fernand Pouillon, and a 1992 extension by Richard Rogers—and a new pier to provide access to the planes.

+ 17

+ 27

+ 14

+ 22

+ 31

+ 8

+ 11

+ 8