Le Brasilia

At the start of this post from 1 year ago I mention what a beautiful city Marseille is and how much I love its urban landscape. Of course you have tons of classic stuff, of course you have quite a few recent pieces of interest. It's not just the tour CMA/CGM or Jean Nouvel's Marseillese tour (that indeed I don't find particularly appealing) but the whole Euromediterranee neighbourhood with its offices and hotels, the long avenue with the tram running along it, the 15-20 stories residential buildings, etc that makes a really pleasant example of how a modern neighbourhood in a European city should look.

Tours CMA/CGM et La Marseillese

Moving a few decades back, we find that also at that time Marseille did some good efforts to look like a modern city and reclaim its place as a Mediterranean capital. There are 2 high-rise buildings (for European standards they are skyscrappers) from the 70's that (slightly surpassing or almost reaching the 100 meters mark) will catch your eye when looking eastwards from Notre Dame de la Garde (la Belle Mere), the residential tower Le Grand Pavois and the offices tower Tour Mediterranee. They are the common example of architecture of the 70's that pop up in many European cities of similar size, trying to create a strong architectural signal.

Though I consider that kind of towers pretty interesting, I understand that for most people (that are not urban architecture freaks like me) those buildings have hardly any interest, and the only reference to architecture of the 50's-60's-70's in Marseille that you'll read about is La Cité Radieuse, designed by Le Corbusier. I'm not a fan at all of this guy, but I think his concept of Unité d'Habitation has some interest. For sure paying a visit to La Cité Radieuse is a good idea, but I would not give it much precedence in a list of things to see and do in Marseille. Indeed, it was not until my eighth visit to the city that I decided to go to see it.

That time in 2018, when walking along Boulevard Michelet from Rond-Point du Prado on my way to Cité Radieuse, one imposing building on the right deeply caught my eye, mainly because of its sculptural outer stairs (fire escape). I did not think about it anymore since then, but last week when I was again in Marseille and I happened to be around the Rond-Point du Prado area, I decided to take another look to that surprising building. I found it even more impressive than the first time, and I found out that is called "Le Brasilia". The Ministére de la Culture site has an interesting entry about the building, giving some pretty good information. I think the building is like 22 stories high, but it seems it had been initially planned to reach 30 stories, which would have made it even more impressive. The architect, Fernand Boukobza was pretty much influenced at that time by Le Corbusier and La Cité Radieuse, and probably this is his most important work. It's interesting that he designed several HLM ensembles, the terrifying French social housing complexes (I say terrifying because of part of the population living there, not because of the architecture, that in many cases seems pretty decent to me). Indeed, it seems like he designed the infamous La Castellane, that has become one of the worst neighbourhoods in Europe.

Le Brasilia