Marseille, France
Mission Title: Construction Cité – the Coast of Marseille
Mission By: Jasper Moelker, Marten Dashorst
Mission Finished on Date: 07-07-2008
SCRIPT
- Visit the construction sites and talk to the people nearby. Ask them about the way the neighborhoods are changing and how long are the works going on for. The unemployment rate in France is around 18% for the native French, and for immigrants or the children of immigrants, it’s around 35%. Are immigrants working the site?
- Explore both the harbor areas like the Panier and the ones more on the inside of the city, like the Noaille, highlighting ethnic differences and the way the space gets tighter or broader.
- Go have a talk with someone at the city hall offices and have them explain the new buildings to you. Ask them if they also have any plans for the outer areas of the city or how these buildings affect the lives of the largely unemployed, alienated underclass.
TRAVEL BAG
How do huge construction sites and massive revelopment projects affect the lives of citizens?
Being France's most important harbor, Marseille has been shaped through its history by transit. But of all the Chinese plastic and Algerian wines to pass through its harbor, immigration has probably affected it the most, maybe even more than being strafed by bombers during World War II. Italians, Algerians and Armenians have carved out neighborhoods for themselves out of the city, making Marseilles a crossoroad, a melting pot, and a truly international city. Unluckily, overpopulation, unemployment, and poverty makes life for most Mareillaise hard, aggravating ethnic tension and xenophobia.
While the social situation in big French cities – especially in the suburbs – is known not to be easy; but rather than invest in improving the lives of its citizens, the Marseillaise officials would rather improve the appearance of their coastline. They hired a gaggle of famus (read: expensive) architects to design the new look. Massimiliano Fuksas' Euromed Center, Rudy Ricciotti's Musée des civilisations de l'Europe et de la Méditerranée – conceived as a “vertical casbah” - and Stefano Boeri's La Villa will doubtlessly change the appearance of the coastline, but it remains unclear how these redevelopments betters the lives of the citizens. The new spaces seem meant to enhance cultural businesses along with the seaside, but the building spree also brought a lot of construction sites, which notoriously change a quarter's perception and the quality of life for its residents.
Mission Report
We were sent to Marseille to investigate the social implications of the “EuroMediterranee” project, started in 1995 and meant to be completed in 2012, renovating the downtown area. From our own experience, urban regeneration projects often cause a lot of problems to the local population, with the costs sometimes outweighing the benefits, and this idea was also our initial point of departure, but as it turned out this is not the case of Marseille.
The secret for this? Keeping everyone both informed and involved, told us Mr Geiling, head of the urbanism and architecture department of the EuroMediterranee development agency.
And indeed, walking around the streets of Marseille did give us the impression that EuroMediterranee might actually be one of those projects where local people are not seen as assets or customers, but as participants and later as occupants as well.
Currently, only about 25% of the local population is French – most people have left Marseille for surrounding towns after almost three decades of urban decay. In order to bring them back and create a sustainable population mix, urban and public amenities are highly necessary; schools, shops and culture.
The cultural part will be taken care of by the Mucem, a new multiplex by Jean-Luc Besson and various other art institutions, while over 300 shops will find place in an enormous shopping center, placed over the port area, and interestingly giving customers a view of the outside world and of the Mediterranean Sea.
Jasper Moelker, Marten Dashorst
