Citadel of Marseille: The new cultural bastion

Meet at the gates of the Old Port, just in front of the MUCEM. Here, in the center of Marseille, stands a huge military complex built in 1660 under the reign of Louis XIV: Fort Saint-Nicolas. For 350 years, this limestone mastodon never opened its doors to the public, maintaining its military activity through the ages. Transformed from a bastion, to a prison, steeped in history over the years, this immense complex has gradually gone from being an impregnable fortress to that of a financial burden due to the maintenance costs involved in maintaining it. So in 2010, after more than three centuries of loyal services rendered to the French Army, the last officials left the site for the fort to begin its restoration. A few years later, The city of Marseille bought the fort from the Ministry of Defense to revive the citadel, and finally open its doors after 350 years of mystery.

To find out who will work to reuse the citadel, the city of Marseille launched a call for projects relating to the conversion of this space in 2017. Initially, the city was not seduced by the projects presented, but in 2020, the SOS group, which includes Acta Vista, the association responsible for restoring the citadel, presented its vision for the future of the fort. Benjamin Lengagne, head of the development center of the Citadel, says: “The idea of the SOS group was to make the Citadel a new major cultural center. Create on this emblematic site in the history of Marseille, a real place of life and creation, with and for all. The aim is to tell the story of France, while asking the question of the place of heritage at the moment, in a place that has a history with sometimes dissonant memories.” On December 8, 2021, the city of Marseille validated the SOS group project, by signing the emphyteutic administrative lease for the fort for the next 40 years.

With this signature, the challenge is multiple. For Acta Vista and the SOS Group, it is an opportunity to extend their socially responsible management model to the site's future jobs: catering, reception, security and mediation, making this new living space a lever for inclusion. Through the history and heritage of the fort, the challenge is also to transmit, as part of a cultural and scientific project, and to write a dialogue between university enthusiasts, citizens carrying memories, and creators. These transmission times will also be an opportunity to make the Citadelle a place to live. The northern gardens, the first spaces to be opened permanently to the public, “will be a real village square” declares Benjamin Lengagne, offering rest areas, snacks and popular entertainment, giving site users, local residents and visiting visitors the opportunity to meet.

This programme will be implemented step by step. Benjamin Lengagne recalls: “2023 is a year of preconfiguration where we opened our doors for heritage days and some artistic events and performances. The whole team is learning to work together and preparing for the opening.” 2024 will mark the opening of the gardens, and the hosting of major events such as the arrival of the Olympic flame. Quickly after this first impulse for events, the citadel will be more and more lively “by becoming a workplace again” explains Benjamin Lengagne. “With the opening of a resource center, in particular on environmental preservation topics with studies on soil health”.

Indeed, the Citadel of Marseille has committed itself as early as 2022 to preserve this living, and non-renewable heritage. Like all green spaces in urban areas, faced with the issue of pollution, the SOS group has partnered with the University of Aix-Marseille and the LPED laboratory (Population Environment and Development Laboratory) by welcoming teams of researchers on site. At the end of 2022, a European project called Remedspace was launched, it is based in La Citadelle and is dedicated to accumulating and sharing knowledge around bioremediation (The science that consists in the decontamination of polluted environments using techniques derived from chemical degradation or other activities of living organisms) and supports companies that wish to devote themselves to soil preservation solutions.

Through its social, cultural and environmental objectives, the citadel will certainly become a meeting place for the people of Marseille, but also a symbol of the city's new policy. Even if the management of the fort is carried out in total independence by the SOS group, its future is inseparable from the public life of Marseille. Benjamin Lengagne declares that “It is the inhabitants who will recreate life at Fort Saint-Nicolas, because the project integrates the implementation of participatory approaches encouraging the people of Marseille to get involved in the development of the activity program. Our aim is to anchor this project in the region, and above all to unite people around a new place to live.” For his part, Benoît Payan, the mayor of Marseille, declares that the project “fully corresponds to the ambitions of the city, and remains one of the symbols of the reappropriation by the people of Marseille of this remarkable place.”