Marseille: The rebirth of a city

The rebirth

Look at this city: View from the high Marian Sanctuary of Notre-Dame de la Garde

Risen from the ruins: Marseille has shaken off its dingy image.

Drug wars and misery are forgotten.

Not only Parisians are now increasingly drawn to the wild and mysterious, beautiful and chaotic city on the Mediterranean.

January 26, 2023

TEXT: Annabelle Hirsch

"Today the Mistral is particularly strong, you can only go as far as the second barrier, otherwise it's dangerous, okay?" may or may not, sits in a red plastic chair in front of a red barrier and grins at me like it's one of the best days of his life.

The Mediterranean Sea glistens behind him, a rock juts out of the water, and in the distance a passenger ship chugs towards Corsica.

Apart from us, me and the young man, there is nobody there.

It's half past eight in the morning in Marseille, or rather: at the so-called "end of the Marseille world", in "Les Goudes", a tiny fishing village on the western outskirts of the city.

If you follow the only "big" street in the bay, past two or three cafes, the boats,

right next to restaurant tables in the port, you automatically end up in front of this red barrier: the entrance to the "Parc National des Calanques" and thus the end of the oldest city in France.

From here the environment becomes abstract.

A few steps further through the dust (not much further than the second barrier, of course, with Mistral, the local wind, there is an acute risk of fire), a small bend to the left, and you are immersed in a world that consists of only two colors seems to exist: white and blue and now and then a bit of green.

White like the already glaring limestone rock into which the salt water has eaten small fjords, the famous calanques.

Blue like the sea, never very far away in this city.

the entrance of the "Parc National des Calanques" and thus the end of the oldest city in France.

From here the environment becomes abstract.

A few steps further through the dust (not much further than the second barrier, of course, with the mistral, the local wind, there is an acute risk of fire), a small bend to the left, and you are immersed in a world that consists of only two colors seems to exist: white and blue and now and then a bit of green.

White like the already glaring limestone rock into which the salt water has eaten small fjords, the famous calanques.

Blue like the sea, never very far away in this city.

the entrance of the "Parc National des Calanques" and thus the end of the oldest city in France.

From here the environment becomes abstract.

A few steps further through the dust (not much further than the second barrier, of course, with Mistral, the local wind, there is an acute risk of fire), a small bend to the left, and you are immersed in a world that consists of only two colors seems to exist: white and blue and now and then a bit of green.

White like the already glaring limestone rock into which the salt water has eaten small fjords, the famous calanques.

Blue like the sea, never very far away in this city.

A few steps further through the dust (not much further than the second barrier, of course, with the mistral, the local wind, there is an acute risk of fire), a small bend to the left, and you are immersed in a world that consists of only two colors seems to exist: white and blue and now and then a bit of green.

White like the already glaring limestone rock into which the salt water has eaten small fjords, the famous calanques.

Blue like the sea, never very far away in this city.

A few steps further through the dust (not much further than the second barrier, of course, with the mistral, the local wind, there is an acute risk of fire), a small bend to the left, and you are immersed in a world that consists of only two colors seems to exist: white and blue and now and then a bit of green.

White like the already glaring limestone rock into which the salt water has eaten small fjords, the famous calanques.

Blue like the sea, never very far away in this city.

has eaten.

Blue like the sea, never very far away in this city.

has eaten.

Blue like the sea, never very far away in this city.

A story from the current issue of the FAZ magazine "Frankfurter Allgemeine Quarterly"

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Anyone who walks here for the first time, especially in the morning when it is still empty but already very warm, will experience an aesthetic shock.

Or at least something similar – slight exaggerations are always welcome in Marseille, kitsch anyway.

The outlines blur, the clarity melts away, one is only senses, body, au revoir, dear mind.

One thinks of Matisse, his white-blue, schematic female bodies, which one now thinks one fully understands.

To Albert Camus and his stranger, Meursault, who kept insisting that the sun had made him murder.

In Paris, in the grisaille, that sounds absurd, like a farce.

Here, almost across from Algiers, the explanation suddenly makes sense.

The sun is the driving force here.

In a depressing as well as in an uplifting sense.

And an important aspect of the new Marseille,

that is suddenly getting so much attention.

For two, three, maybe even four years, lifestyle magazines from major newspapers have been asking more and more excitedly: “Marseille, the new capital of gastronomy?” or: “Marseille, the new capital of fashion?”, “Marseille, the new capital of art ?” Since the city surprisingly became European Capital of Culture in 2013, its image has changed radically.

Where it was once said to be provincial, boring, dirty, home to cutthroats, vulgar women and drug gangs shooting each other up, home to people with no culture and funny accents, it is now said to be so cool, so beautiful, so cosmopolitan, simply exciting.

maybe even four years ago, lifestyle magazines from major newspapers are asking more and more excitedly: "Marseille, the new capital of gastronomy?" or: "Marseille, the new capital of fashion?", "Marseille, the new capital of art?" Since the city surprisingly became European Capital of Culture in 2013, its image has radically changed.

Where it was once said to be provincial, boring, dirty, home to cutthroats, vulgar women and drug gangs shooting each other up, home to people with no culture and funny accents, it is now said to be so cool, so beautiful, so cosmopolitan, simply exciting.

maybe even four years ago, lifestyle magazines from major newspapers are asking more and more excitedly: "Marseille, the new capital of gastronomy?" or: "Marseille, the new capital of fashion?", "Marseille, the new capital of art?" Since the city surprisingly became European Capital of Culture in 2013, its image has radically changed.

Where it was once said to be provincial, boring, dirty, home to cutthroats, vulgar women and drug gangs shooting each other up, home to people with no culture and funny accents, it is now said to be so cool, so beautiful, so cosmopolitan, simply exciting.

the new capital of art?” Since the city surprisingly became European Capital of Culture in 2013, its image has changed radically.

Where it was once said to be provincial, boring, dirty, home to cutthroats, vulgar women and drug gangs shooting each other up, home to people with no culture and funny accents, it is now said to be so cool, so beautiful, so cosmopolitan, simply exciting.

the new capital of art?” Since the city surprisingly became European Capital of Culture in 2013, its image has changed radically.

Where it was once said to be provincial, boring, dirty, home to cutthroats, vulgar women and drug gangs shooting each other up, home to people with no culture and funny accents, it is now said to be so cool, so beautiful, so cosmopolitan, simply exciting.

Very popular motif among Instagram travelers: club and restaurant "Tuba", a former diving club

One of their most important spots is right at the entrance of Les Goudes: the restaurant and hotel "Tuba".

On Instagram, the former diving club, where Commandant Cousteau stopped by, is one of the most popular motifs for stylish travelers to Marseille.

Long and flat like a boat, the house is glued directly to the rock and looks like a simplified version of an Eileen Gray mansion.

No matter where you are here, in the restaurant, in the four small, very simply kept rooms, everywhere you look at this almost foolishly happy sea.

In the morning, young, very tanned and good-looking people walk over the rocks and prepare yellow and white striped lounger cushions, in the evening they place large bowls with salads, tarama, fish and ice cream in the middle of the tables, which are almost in the water.

To share, of course.

After all, the philosophy of this place, which was opened two years ago by three people from Marseille, wants to follow the philosophy of the city: generosity, openness and a bit of chaos are the pillars of the local lifestyle.

And maybe also the food, says Vérane Frédiani, when we walked up to the pilgrimage church “Notre-Dame de la Garde” in the three o’clock heat the day before, slightly suicidal.

“In Marseille, food has always been a way to be close and to communicate despite all the differences.

That's what makes it so interesting.” If you believe the native of Marseille, her city is currently the most exciting gastronomic destination in the country.

One, she would like to record in particular, in which female bosses, this still quite rare species, are booming.

"There are so many great women who open restaurants here." Julia Sammut and her "Épicerie L'Idéal", for example, this small restaurant in the lively waterfront district of Noailles.

There you can eat a milk sandwich with tuna, capers and preserved Sicilian lemon with a "Fleurs d'Oranger" tea and the entertaining hustle and bustle on the street and briefly feel as if you are in the middle of Tunis.

For a long time people turned up their noses at the subject of Marseille and Essen, saying

the only food here is pizza, pasta and couscous;

only the landscape has changed completely recently, says Frédiani, who has just dedicated an entire book to the culinary revival of her homeland with "Marseille cuisine le monde": "The diversity that Marseille offers through all the cultures represented here is unique .

Influences from the Maghreb, Armenia, Italy, France, Portugal and all over the world mix here.

It's a very rich cuisine, but above all one that doesn't betray its popular roots.

You celebrate a certain simplicity.”

that Marseille offers through all the cultures represented here is unique.

Influences from the Maghreb, Armenia, Italy, France, Portugal and all over the world mix here.

It's a very rich cuisine, but above all one that doesn't betray its popular roots.

You celebrate a certain simplicity.”

that Marseille offers through all the cultures represented here is unique.

Influences from the Maghreb, Armenia, Italy, France, Portugal and all over the world mix here.

It's a very rich cuisine, but above all one that doesn't betray its popular roots.

You celebrate a certain simplicity.”

Splendor and misery, high and low, new and old, everything coexists here, the city does not hide its flaws.

Since the pandemic, various lockdowns and the possibility of working from home have put the attractiveness of Paris into perspective, more and more residents of the capital have been looking for the "southern way of life".

In the last two years, the "cité phocéenne" is said to have even contested first place in the ranking of the most popular capital escape destinations from its cousin Bordeaux.

This is indeed an enormous change, says Jean-François Chougnet, who helped initiate the upheaval.

It was he who led the project "Marseille Provence 2013 - European Capital of Culture" and made it an exemplary success: the flow of new tourists continued to increase even after the Year of Culture, and the art and culture scene continued to develop in parallel.

In addition, the view has changed: “Back then, hardly anyone had Marseille in mind as a cultural location, today it is different.

People don't just talk about crime anymore.

For me that is the greatest victory.” We are sitting on the second floor of the “Mucem – Musée des Civilizations de l'Europe et de la Méditerranée”, which opened as part of the Year of Culture and which Chougnet will direct for another year.

Below you can see the luminous esplanade of the “J4” quay, over which a few people stroll like shadow sticks, to the left the port estuary regularly spits boats into the sea, to the right the skyscrapers of the urban renewal project “Euroméditerranée” tower into the continuously blue sky.

The "Mucem" museum illuminates the culture of the Mediterranean region and is a crowd puller.

The Corniche is a well-known promenade in Marseille where people like to go swimming

This museum, initiated at that time, has significantly increased the attraction of the city.

Not only because the building designed by Rudy Ricciotti is impressive, a building that, as someone once wrote, "defends itself against the terror of minimalism" and seems to be in almost physical dialogue with the sea and the lands beyond.

But above all because its mission, that is to understand and valorise the Mediterranean Sea as a civilized and cultural community, seems unique and today more important than ever.

Especially in days when, especially in France, many people want to believe that they have nothing to do with people who come to Europe by sea and have to protect themselves from an "invasion", the Mucem acts as a beacon of reason and of historical consciousness.

It reminds

that the cradle of "our culture" is more likely to be in the south than in the north, and that cosmopolitan Marseille should be understood and celebrated as the gateway to these cultural roots.

As the "Gateway to the South", as the travel writer Albert Londres called the city in the 1920s.

For once, the Mediterranean is not only presented as a problem zone in the exhibitions, not as a refugee grave or route of unwanted immigration, but as a diverse space steeped in history.

One whose north and south coasts are linked by traditions, stories, rites and a certain philosophy, namely that of those who live under the glaring sun and facing the sea - and which can also be found in Marseille.

Could it be,

that the recent enthusiasm for the port city also has something to do with a longing for this different attitude to life?

With the desire for more sensuality, for more diversity, for more cultural confusion?

Will the Mediterranean lifestyle (or what you imagine it to mean) soon replace the very white Nordic trend?

Chougget thinks for a moment.

“That can be true, but you shouldn't romanticize the Mediterranean region either.

It's a complex space, full of conflicts, we notice that every day in the collaboration with the museums of this region.

The same goes for Marseille.”

what you imagine by that) might soon kick off the very white Nordic trend?

Chougget thinks for a moment.

“That can be true, but you shouldn't romanticize the Mediterranean region either.

It's a complex space, full of conflicts, we notice that every day in the collaboration with the museums of this region.

The same goes for Marseille.”

what you imagine by that) might soon kick off the very white Nordic trend?

Chougget thinks for a moment.

“That can be true, but you shouldn't romanticize the Mediterranean region either.

It's a complex space, full of conflicts, we notice that every day in the collaboration with the museums of this region.

The same goes for Marseille.”

The location is unique, the mood of the people is rousing, in contrast to Paris, hierarchies seem to have been abolished.

Emmanuelle Luciani, the artist, curator and director of the artist residency “Pavillon Southway”, on the other hand, sees a trend reversal: “Yes, I think that modernism, minimalism, looks at this rather cold, Nordic aesthetic and the values ​​that are associated with it lose attraction.

We long for something different.

Something you can find here in Marseille.” If you want to get to know and love this city, Luciani is the place to be.

She can talk for hours about this or that aspect, jumps from one story to another, from one person to a place, says you have to get to know it, you absolutely have to go here, wait, I'll reserve a table for you, come on, you will expected from my friend XY.

Or maybe she'll pack you in her little white panda and blast you off towards the "Quartiers Nord" to talk in the bittersweet haze of the beans at her father's coffee roastery (one of the oldest in town!) about how the art of coffee used to be came into the country via Marseille and the very first "café" was opened here, not in "stupid" Paris.

Her family, which, like most here, has Italian and Corsican roots, has been at home in the port city for several generations.

The house where she runs her artist residency, this total work of art filled with sculptures in limestone paint, Neapolitan football flags and cups, Cocteau-esque frescoes, belonged to her great-grandfather, who was an artist.

Actually, the thirty-six-year-old Luciani should serve as a contact person for the contemporary art scene, explain why so many artists and musicians are drawn from Paris, and show appropriate places.

After all, she is exhibiting young artists from France, Scotland and Italy in the "Pavillon Southway", but also in other places in the city, for example in the MAMO on the roof of Le Corbusier's "Cité Radieuse", or inviting them to her "Pavillon “ to live and work.

Most recently, the Iranian painter Hadi Alijani was a guest in the back room for a month, where he painted surrealistic still lifes with a view of the mountain range that pushes Marseille out to sea.

fruit, the rocks, the water, the light.

and show corresponding places.

After all, she is exhibiting young artists from France, Scotland and Italy in the "Pavillon Southway", but also in other places in the city, for example in the MAMO on the roof of Le Corbusier's "Cité Radieuse", or inviting them to her "Pavillon “ to live and work.

Most recently, the Iranian painter Hadi Alijani was a guest in the back room for a month, where he painted surrealistic still lifes with a view of the mountain range that pushes Marseille out to sea.

fruit, the rocks, the water, the light.

and show corresponding places.

After all, she is exhibiting young artists from France, Scotland and Italy in the "Pavillon Southway", but also in other places in the city, for example in the MAMO on the roof of Le Corbusier's "Cité Radieuse", or inviting them to her "Pavillon “ to live and work.

Most recently, the Iranian painter Hadi Alijani was a guest in the back room for a month, where he painted surrealistic still lifes with a view of the mountain range that pushes Marseille out to sea.

fruit, the rocks, the water, the light.

Most recently, the Iranian painter Hadi Alijani was a guest in the back room for a month, where he painted surrealistic still lifes with a view of the mountain range that pushes Marseille out to sea.

fruit, the rocks, the water, the light.

Most recently, the Iranian painter Hadi Alijani was a guest in the back room for a month, where he painted surrealistic still lifes with a view of the mountain range that pushes Marseille out to sea.

fruit, the rocks, the water, the light.

Colourful, exciting, exotic - Marseille's melting pot: market in the Noailles district

Of course there are many exciting art locations, she says, especially near the train station, but she also believes that the extraordinary thing about her city is less what you find everywhere, not the new galleries or bars, but that why the artists come here: the complexity, the contrasts, also the history.

You should discover and feel that.

"You shouldn't make the mistake that many Parisians make and just sit by the port or in the calanques or in the hip new restaurants.

They're great, but Marseille is much more than that. It's the Old Port, the Panier, the Canebière, but also here, the rather quiet 8th arrondissement, the Corniche as well as the 'Quartiers Nord'.

It's the market vendors of Noailles, the fishermen of Sormiou, the newcomers... Everything mixes here.

All of that is Marseille.” In fact, this is one of the big differences to Paris, along with the location and the rousingly good mood of the people: hierarchies seem to have been abolished here, splendor and misery, high and low, new and old, live close together , the city does not hide its supposed mistakes, there is room for everyone here.

"And that," Luciani proclaims happily on the patio of her home, poking at a Häagen-Dazs mug, "is incredibly inspiring."

Pavilion Southway: The art location looks like a country idyll in the middle of the city.

Sculpture in the Southway Pavilion by Bella Hunt & Ddc, founding members of Southway Studio.

Artists love the city as a source of inspiration.

Not far from the “Pavillon Southway”, Marine Brutti and Arthur Harel are sitting in their office in the building of the “Ballet National de Marseille”, which was once designed by a Le Corbusier student for Roland Petit, and seem very happy with it.

When asked how she would define contemporary dance today, Brutti answers almost as Emmanuelle Luciani describes her hometown: “It's this, this and this. All at the same time.

It can no longer be reduced to one aspect.

It's the choreographer Lucinda Childs who revolutionized dance in the 1970s, but also someone like our friend, the voguing icon Lasseindra Ninja.” Three years ago, with this rather fresh approach, “La Horde” did the miracle, not only as Collective (as a very young one at that,

they are all in their mid-thirties) to take over the management of an institution like the "Ballet National", but also to become something of a Marseille export hit in the last two years.

The pieces they are developing here, which mix elements of rave culture with classical elements, traditional wedding dances with dance moves from the clubs, have been touring France and the world successfully for months.

They are currently working on an installation for the "Palais des Festivals" in Cannes, and in 2023 a new creation will celebrate its premiere in Germany.

Can they dare to do things in Marseille that might not be possible elsewhere?

"Definitely.

You have freedoms here that you don't have in Paris," they say.

Still, they don't feel legitimized to say much about the city,

all three come from Paris and the surrounding area.

Just this much, perhaps: “Marseille is incredibly dense and diverse.

There is a lot more than meets the eye, especially a lot that is hidden.

You have to get involved.” The density, the diversity, the slight chaos that repeatedly appears in her choreographies as her generation's attitude towards life, make Marseille an ideal place for her project, where beauty is created through an intuitive confusion.

Headquarters of the Ballet National de Marseille, a dance company founded in 1972 by dancer and choreographer Roland Petit

When I'm back in "Les Goudes", at the end of the Marseille world, and sitting with Kevin Sabatier at a table on the rocks of "Tuba" at sunset, the question comes to my mind: What do the residents actually think of this new one Enthusiasm for your city?

Do they like the stylish crowd attracted by places like Tuba, but also by La Horde, Luciani's Southway Studio and Frédiani's Restaurant Tips?

What does he think of what the young Marseille writer Hadrien Bels wrote, that his city longed to be desired by everyone, and that's why it bent, combed, dressed up, that it tried to be so uncomplicatedly beautiful to become like her sisters Bordeaux, Lyon or Aix, possibly losing her spirit in the process?

Is Marseille's charm under threat?

"No,

I don't believe that at all," says Sabatier, tipping down his rhum arrangé with a flourish: "Marseille can't be bent.

She never has.”

The next morning, on the small town beach, at the sight of the teenage boys with their awkwardly cool attitude and smoking joints, the young women who want to get a tan as quickly as possible, the perfectly made-up and coiffed ladies gliding through the water, smiling contentedly, think me that he is right.

Marseille, this warm, rebellious, wild, mysterious, beautiful and also broken city that is brutal and gentle at the same time, will never change for others.

She is too much herself for that, too real.

She lives too much under the sign of the too glaringly burning sun for that.

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