WORDS
SEB CARAYOL
PHOTOS
CAROLINE DUTREY,
FRANCIS BLAISE, © MARSEILLE-PROVENCE 2013
Dream factory
Once just a cluster of sheds, La Friche – in
this year’s capital of culture – is now a
cutting edge arts’ venue on the right side
of a €30million facelift. We pay a visit
O N T H E S C E N E
M A R S E I L L E
if you’re someone
who needs a full night’s sleep, never take charge
of the only set of keys to a 4.85-hectare tobacco factory-turned-
art hub. That’s just one thing that Odile Thiéry, communications
director of La Friche la Belle de Mai, has learned from her 20-year
involvement with the mammoth creative space.
“
There were people who wandered after dark on the site and
ended up being lost,” she says, recalling the late-night calls she
regularly received during the site’s humble beginnings back in 1992.
Now, however, the phone rings a lot less after dark, thanks to the
transformation of the shabby conglomeration of warehouses into an
alternative cultural behemoth.
Where once the space in downtown Marseille was run on
a shoestring with a skeleton staff, today – just in time for the
city’s inauguration as a 2013 European Capital of Culture – it’s a
municipally backed arts centre, putting the finishing touches to
works funded by a €30m grant.
“
When we started,” Thiéry says, “it looked more like
Brazil
[
the
Terry Gilliam film set in a dystopian future] .” As you’d expect from
somewhere called “The Wasteland” (French for
La Friche
),
it still
does – sort of. Under its roof, the jumbled mix of activities include
two radio stations, a public skatepark, art galleries, exhibition halls,
an industrial-chic restaurant serving market-style home cooking
and an unusual kids’ playground set on a refurbished train wagon.
The mega-bursary has – over the past year and a half –
it’s a family affair
Named after the
industrial port pier it
was built on
(
left
),
the
J1 museum’s Atelier
du Large (
J1, Quai de la
Joliette
)
opens in January
with a bar-restaurant,
galleries and a special
area for children and
young adults. Free entry.
speakeasy
Behind a fake Marseille
souvenir shop, a secret
passage leads to Carry
Nation (
carrynation.fr
),
a self-proclaimed
clandestine bar where
every detail recreates
the US prohibition years.
Look no further for the
best cocktails in town.
The shabby conglomeration
of warehouses
(
has transformed) into an
alternative cultural behemoth
01
La Friche, meaning ‘The
Wasteland’ is a rough and
ready cultural behemoth
02
Under its massive roof are
venues that play host to
live-music events
03
A trendy dining area
serves market-style home
cooking
02
Marseille’s year of culture
Our eye on the must-dos for 2013
0 3 4
