The Grand Port Maritime de Marseille (GPMM) has entrusted architect Corinne Vezzoni, working alongside Philippe Matonti and Eiffage Concessions, with the ambitious 'Phare' project at La Joliette. This €102 million partnership contract encompasses the complete reconstruction of the port's current headquarters on-site and the development of a comprehensive tertiary sector hub that blends new construction with restored heritage buildings.
The project centers around the grand Halle J0, an XXL-sized Eiffel-style architectural gem that has remained dormant, hidden behind the public establishment's offices. Vezzoni plans to showcase this structure within its complete urban sequence, similar to its neighbor J1, which is also slated for revitalization by Vinci. The Marseille-based architect recently discussed the site's major challenges, including port circulation, security considerations, material selection, and heritage preservation.
'This La Joliette site is fascinating because it concentrates an extremely dense urban and industrial memory,' Vezzoni explained. 'From the beginning, what struck me was the logic of the 'strips' – these perpendicular bands to the sea that facilitated port logistics in the 19th century. It's a remarkably efficient system: carts circulated, goods were stored, cranes operated in sequence. The entire site morphology was designed for interaction between sea and land.'
The architect emphasized how the traverse of La Joliette, present since the first installations, represents a foundational trace that the project seeks to rediscover and reinterpret. She observed how two distinct urban frameworks converge precisely at this location: the classic north-south axis of Michelet, Castellane, and Porte d'Aix, representing Haussmannian urbanism and monumental planned city development, meeting an organic fabric that follows the coastline, embracing the port and its flows.
'We're not reconstructing a generic building on empty land; we're recomposing a very marked material history – that of the port,' Vezzoni noted. The design preserves characteristic elements like circumflex-shaped roofing, gables visible from La Joliette square, metal structures, and stone or brick facades, extending these elements into contemporary architectural writing through stratified construction.
The architectural concept features an L-shaped building facing the sea to house the port headquarters, followed by a deliberate gap and a second strip-shaped building for offices and the port's training institute. This design prioritizes fluidity and porosity while respecting customs constraints and passenger flows, offering a genuine interface with the city through a 2,600-square-meter public square accessible to pedestrians without interfering with port operations.
Heritage preservation plays a central role in Vezzoni's approach, particularly regarding the original halls. While many structures suffered damage over time, certain elements survive, including the characteristic two-pitched inclined roofs typical of industrial-port architecture. The team decided to reinterpret this silhouette not through mimicry but extension, reviving a projecting gallery that disappeared from the south of the grand Halle J0, visible in 1899 plans.
'This gallery allowed cranes to handle bales and protected merchandise,' Vezzoni explained. 'We proposed reinstalling it not only for its heritage value but also to offer a finer, more inhabited facade toward the city.' The project goes beyond simple administrative headquarters construction, organizing into two strips: the first, facing the sea, accommodates the Grand Port Maritime headquarters, while the second, city-side, groups office programs, training centers, associative spaces, and crucially, a large free hall completely open to public use.
Material selection reflects sustainability principles and local heritage connections. Concrete will be enriched with recycled stone from demolitions, while the team plans to collaborate with local tile manufacturers. These tiles carry incredible history – they departed from Marseille on ships as ballast and ended up on rooftops worldwide. The design incorporates them into a lace-like claustra pattern inspired by moucharabieh, evoking Mediterranean, Oriental, and Asian influences.
The moucharabieh serves multiple functions beyond ornamentation. It filters sunlight on heavily exposed western facades, creates nighttime light play by transforming facades into urban lanterns, and symbolically narrates Marseille's connections with other continents including Africa, the Levant, and South America. This perforated motif becomes a global architectural language rooted in local port memory.
Security and circulation present complex challenges given the varied flows of passengers, port personnel, and visitors. The main issue involves articulating city and port functions – allowing urban users free circulation to halls and public programs while maintaining isolation from logistics or sensitive areas. Vezzoni's solution includes liberating vast southern space as a 2,600-square-meter public esplanade forming a threshold between city and port while integrating security constraints.
Pedestrian circulation operates at elevated levels, crossing technical routes, emergency access, and the strategic 'royal route' – crucial for port transit – through successive small squares, ramps, and bridges. The building itself serves as a natural boundary rather than visible fencing, with large sliding doors integrated into the architecture that can isolate public spaces when ships dock and areas require security.
'We wanted to avoid the feeling of militarized control or a city surrounded by gates,' Vezzoni emphasized. 'Here, security integrates into the architectural project. The building bends, adapts, becomes a control tool but also a connection tool.' The design includes an elevated gallery inspired by original industrial devices, offering functional access to restaurants and public spaces while enabling flow evacuation or redirection when necessary.
The project maintains the south hall as entirely free, traversable, and available for varied uses including salons, performances, events, and markets. Yet the system can secure zones without rupture or total closure when ships arrive. This delicate balance creates a simultaneously port-related, urban, and hospitable location.
The 400-500 seat auditorium, positioned at the southwest angle in articulation with the hall and city, remains independently accessible and slightly elevated to preserve sea views. This shared space serves port needs while accommodating broader metropolitan territory requirements, anchored in landscape and open to diverse audiences.
Vezzoni's philosophy emphasizes 'politeness toward history' – not pastiche creation but dialogue with existing elements, prolonging lines, materials, and uses so architecture inscribes itself in duration, being not only beautiful but just, ensuring the port continues looking toward both sea and city.
'Marseille is a city of encounters – between land and sea, between classical city and port city, between industrial past and future uses, between sobriety and identity,' Vezzoni concluded. 'This port headquarters represents a way to reconcile port with city. It looks simultaneously toward the sea in its function and toward the city in its expression. It doesn't hide but doesn't impose itself. It's a building of active memory.'
