The J1 Hall, a bridge to the sea

“The J1 Hall is a unique object,” a collector’s item, carefully set on a pedestal, like the Major Cathedral and the MuCEM.
Such pedestalled works, isolated and insular, are the mark of the “spirit of the port,” past and future. This static logic resonates with the movement of the great ships entering and leaving the channel. The Hall’s dimensions and its urban setting suffice to give it a personality, an image, a unique place in the panorama of Marseille. Everything is already there; nothing needs to be added.

“The J1 Hall is a bridge to the sea.” A functional architecture, which reaches out, stretches toward the horizon, while remaining immutably anchored in the ground.
This opening to the port, this special and fond relationship with the sea, is restored to Marseille via a very specific, ad hoc design approach; the anchoring to the city is reinforced by the horizontal line of the canopy, which creates a square protected from the Mistral and the summer sun. It houses a dense and somewhat strange garden set in the minerality of the quayside like an evocation of voyages of adventure: it is a garden of return, of acclimatization, both a refuge and an imagined place.

“The J1 has a radiant future.””
A magical, euphoric place whose special characteristics have been respected and preserved.
Protect the J1 as one would a treasure, reveal it through an approach that is admirative and respectful of its architecture and history and seek to strengthen its inherent qualities using a few carefully coordinated signs that affirm both its identity and its new functions: Such is the challenge we want to take up.

Bernard Reichen