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Arts + Ents > Art > Features
European Capital of Culture: A capital experience in Marseille
[marseille-getty.jpg]
[marseille-getty.jpg]
Cultural calendar steams ahead after innumerable delays
Mary Novakovich
Friday 12 July 2013
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After a sluggish start and innumerable delays, Marseille's year as
European Capital of Culture is steaming ahead. The year was nearly
halfway over before some of the flagship projects finally opened. Two
of the biggest happen to be neighbours on the revamped Joliette docks
near the city's neo-Byzantine Cathédrale de la Major. These two
enormous blocks of glass and concrete – one black, one white – have
turned their backs on the city to focus on the sea.
Smoky glass covered with charcoal concrete latticework make up the
Musée des Civilisations de l'Europe et de la Méditerranée (MuCEM),
the first national museum outside Paris. Permanent exhibitions showcase
the history of the peoples of the Mediterranean – fittingly so, as
most of these races have been absorbed into Marseille's multi-ethnic
population over the centuries since the city was founded 2,500 years
ago.
Even its architect, Rudy Ricciotti, personifies the mish-mash that is
Marseille: he's French, of Italian origin and born in Algeria.
The latticework covering parts of the building screens a walkway around
the perimeter that is open to the public. A stroke of genius was to
connect this walkway to a bridge linking the ultramodern MuCEM to the
17th-century Fort St-Jean on the hilltop behind it.
In MuCEM's more audacious neighbour, Villa Méditerranée, Italian
architect Stefano Boeri has created a giant chunky letter C, with the
lower curve submerged under a newly created moat and the upper curve a
40m-long cantilever jutting towards the sea. Glass-bottomed patches of
floor-space in the overhanging level give glimpses of the pool of water
beneath. The panoramic viewpoint and permanent exhibitions are free,
but the very French nature of the cultural events scheduled (debates,
documentaries, concerts) could make it less inclusive for those without
a decent grasp of the language.
Even with delays and ubiquitous construction cranes, Marseille could
end up doing a London Olympics and surpassing everyone's expectations.
That's already evident in the Vieux Port, where traffic has been tamed
and the waterfront teems with people rediscovering their own city.
Norman Foster's Ombrière, a giant, flat, mirrored sunshade (pictured)
6m above the ground at the water's edge, instantly captivates as people
can't help but stare up and marvel at a world turned upside down. Which
is exactly what the city of Marseille needed.
www.mp2013.fr
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