#publisher Art and design RSS feed Le Corbusier RSS feed Design RSS feed Art RSS feed Travel RSS feed Marseille RSS feed World news RSS feed France RSS feed Culture RSS feed Heritage RSS feed Architecture and design blog RSS feed Turn autoplay off Turn autoplay on Please activate cookies in order to turn autoplay off * Jump to content [s] * Jump to comments [c] * Jump to site navigation [0] * Jump to search [4] * Terms and conditions [8] Edition: UK US AU * Your activity * Email subscriptions * Account details * Linked services Profile Mobile About us * About us, * Contact us * Press office * Guardian Print Centre * Guardian readers' editor * Observer readers' editor * Terms of service * Privacy policy * Advertising guide * Digital archive * Digital edition * Guardian Weekly * Buy Guardian and Observer photos Today's paper * Main section * G2 features * Comment and debate * Editorials, letters and corrections * Obituaries * Other lives * Sport * Subscribe Subscribe The Guardian home ____________________ Search * News * Sport * Comment * Culture * Business * Money * Life & style * Travel * Environment * Tech * TV * Video * Dating * Offers * Jobs * Culture * Art and design * Architecture and design blog architecture design blog * Next * Previous * Blog home Le Corbusier's Cité Radieuse rooftop gym transformed into art space French designer Ora-Ã�to is converting the famous Marseille roof terrace into a haven for contemporary art * Share * Tweet this * * [pin_it_button.png] * * Email rooftop of Le Corbusier's Cité Radieuse Park in the sky … the rooftop of Le Corbusier's Cité Radieuse in Marseille. Photograph: Mamo "Welcome to my place," says Ito Morabito, perched on the balustrade of the most famous rooftop of any 20th-century building. Behind the young French designer, concrete forms gleam in the midday Marseille sun: a great ventilation stack flares out like a sculptural vase; a paddling pool nestles beneath a classroom on stilts; children clamber on a mock-mountain of rugged rocks. The roof terrace of Le Corbusier's Cité Radieuse apartment building, completed in 1953, has long been the symbol of the sun-drenched ideal of Mediterranean modernism – a park in the sky for the residents of this brave new vertical city. It stretches out like the deck of an ocean liner, with rocky mountain peaks to one side, the open sea to the other, a landscape of collective leisure suspended 18 storeys up in the air. And now it has a new owner, with big ambitions. "This will be the reason people come to Marseille," says Morabito, who has never been one to shy away from big claims. Now 35, he was catapulted to fame 10 years ago when he designed a series of fake products for luxury brands, complete with fake advertising campaigns, under the pseudonym Ora-Ã�to. These fraudulent objects, and the audacity with which he promoted them, created so much hype the very brands he was pirating began to beat a path to his door with real commissions. His design skills have since proved a little less successful than his capacity as a PR stuntman, but that has not hindered his plan to transform this little piece of Corbusian heritage into an international art centre. It is a story as unlikely as his own rise to fame. So how did it come about? Beneath the roof terrace, the cliff-like stack of apartments of the Cité Radieuse is peppered with shops and offices, a hotel and restaurant, doctor's surgery and nursery school. In Corb's vision, the building's 1,600 residents would shop, eat and learn together – while up on the roof they would exercise as one in a purpose-built gym, paid for by the residents' association. Only, like a lot of gyms, most people that paid for it didn't actually use it. As residents grew tired of contributing to its upkeep, the gym was privatised, and when the owner retired three years ago, he put it up for sale. Ora-Ito on the roof Ora-Ã�to surveys his new kingdom. Photograph: Mamo "As soon as I heard it was on the market, I jumped on a train," says Morabito, who was born in Marseille, the son of jeweller Pascal Morabito, but now runs his studio from Paris. "I grew up knowing this building, so I couldn't resist that chance to own such an important piece of it." While many others had the same idea, he says his bid was favoured by the building's co-owners because he was one of the few who proposed restoring the rooftop back to its original state. It had become rundown and poorly maintained, its abandoned spaces a site of illicit trysts. "It was the fucking place," he grins. "I had a book of original photographs, and it looked really different," he says. "I realised there was this great big wart that had been added in the 1950s as an extension to the gym – and it was listed with the rest of the structure when the building became a protected monument in the 1980s." Lengthy negotiations, with the help of the Fondation Le Corbusier, have allowed him to slice off the wart. This revealed an expansive sun deck complete with a shower room studded with coloured tiles, and the Fondation supplied original drawings to enable restoration of the structure – including a set of beautiful timber sliding doors, designed by Corb's collaborator Charlotte Perriand. At a cost of €7m – jointly funded by Ora-Ã�to, the building's co-owners and the French state – the entire rooftop has been immaculately restored, while work is underway to transform the former gym into an arts space, cafe and artists' residences, which will host a site-specific installation for four months over the summer each year. The project is christened Mamo – the "Marseille Modulor" – in a riff on Le Corbusier's system of measurement, and a cheeky inversion of New York's MoMA, which seems appropriate given how Ora-Ã�to made his name. "I want it to be like a boxing match between Le Corbusier and the artist," says Morabito, who has lined up French sculptor Xavier Veilhan to be first in the ring with one of his Architectones installations – a series of works developed for specific architectural sites around the world. During the winter months, the space will host lectures and workshops with architecture schools. Set to open in June as part of Marseille's 2013 Capital of Culture extravaganza, only time will tell whether the residents of the Cité Radieuse will find a contemporary arts space more useful than a gym, or whether it is another step in the promotion of the Ora-Ã�to brand. Either way, it has spurred on an overdue restoration, and it is a valuable addition to the city's emerging network of arts venues. As Morabito smiles, taking in the view of his new domain: "We will make a big noise when it opens. We are a very big – how do you say – show-off." Daily Email close Sign up for the Guardian Today Our editors' picks for the day's top news and commentary delivered to your inbox each morning. Sign up for the daily email Posted by Oliver Wainwright Monday 8 April 2013 16.42 BST theguardian.com Jump to comments (…) * Print this Print this * Share * Contact us Send to a friend Close this popup Sender's name ____________________ Recipient's email address ____________________ Send Your IP address will be logged Share Close this popup Short link for this page: http://gu.com/p/3fxjf * StumbleUpon * reddit * Tumblr * Digg * LinkedIn * Google Bookmarks * del.icio.us * livejournal * Facebook * Twitter Contact us Close this popup * Contact the Arts editor arts@theguardian.com * Report errors or inaccuracies: userhelp@theguardian.com * Letters for publication should be sent to: letters@theguardian.com * If you need help using the site: userhelp@theguardian.com * Call the main Guardian and Observer switchboard: +44 (0)20 3353 2000 * + Advertising guide + License/buy our content Article history About this article Close this popup Le Corbusier's Cité Radieuse rooftop gym transformed into art space This article was published on the Guardian website at 16.42 BST on Monday 8 April 2013. It was last modified at 21.52 BST on Wednesday 3 July 2013. Art and design * Le Corbusier · * Design · * Art Travel * Marseille World news * France Culture * Heritage More from Architecture and design blog on Art and design * Le Corbusier · * Design · * Art Travel * Marseille World news * France Culture * Heritage More blogposts * More on Marseille * A shiny shade structure for Marseille by Foster and Partners Marseille's moment As European Capital of Culture, Marseille is shaking off its seedy image, says Vanessa Thorpe, with a year of extraordinary arts events and a series of breathtaking architectural projects * Marseille's £6bn Capital of Culture rebirth * An art and shopping tour of Marseille * Marseille * Next * Previous * Blog home * Share * Tweet this * * * Email Comments Click here to join the discussion. We can't load the discussion on theguardian.com because you don't have JavaScript enabled. 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