Dezeen Magazine

Special feature: Marseille Capital of Culture 2013

A series of new cultural venues has sprung up along the waterfront in Marseille, including the contemporary art centre by Kengo Kuma we featured yesterday and a mirrored pavilion by Foster + Partners (+ slideshow).

As this year's European Capital of Culture, the coastal city in southern France has recently seen heavy investment in public buildings and temporary event spaces along its harbour.

Special feature: new architecture in Marseille
Vieux Port pavilion by Foster + Partners. Photograph by Edmund Sumner

The first we featured was an events pavilion by British architects Foster + Partners that reflects visitors walking beneath its polished steel canopy.

FRAC Marseille by Kengo Kuma and Associates
FRAC Marseille by Kengo Kuma and Associates. Photograph by Roland Halbe

More recently, Japanese designer Kengo Kuma completed the FRAC Marseille arts centre for the Provence Alpes Cotes d'Azur region with a chequered glass facade.

MuCEM by Rudy Ricciotti photographed by Edmund Sumner
MuCEM by Rudy Ricciotti. Photograph by Edmund Sumner

Also completed this year is the filigree-clad Museum of European and Mediterranean Civilisations (MuCEM) by architect Rudy Ricciotti, which connects to a seventeenth-century fort across the water via a long thin bridge.

Villa Méditerranée by Boeri Studio
Villa Méditerranée by Boeri Studio. Photograph by Edmund Sumner

An archive and research centre with a cantilevered exhibition floor and an underwater conference suite by Boeri Studio is located just down the promenade.

Le Corbusier's Cité Radieuse rooftop to open as art space
Le Corbusier's Cité Radieuse rooftop to open as art space

Elsewhere in the city, the rooftop of Le Corbusier's Cité Radieuse housing block was opened as a contemporary art space as part of the celebrations.

See more architecture and design in Marseille »