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| Architecture in Aix-en-Provence |
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 For
their distinctiveness and the interplay of stylistic motifs and decoration
: doorways,
doors, door knockers, caryatids and Telamons, balconies, wrought iron
balustrades, pediments, pilasters, mascarons, cornerstones, superposed
Greek columns, scrolls, street corner shrines, etc. each
hôtel
particulier is a study in itself. |
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Among
the many striking architectural masterpieces must be counted : the
mairie (City Hall), the halle aux grains (tithe barn, its neighbour
now known
as the ‘old post office), the place d’Albertas (rue Espariat),
the hôtel d’Albertas (facing the above), the hôtel
Boyer d’Eguilles (its next door neighbour) the Pavillon Vendôme
(rue Celony), the hôtel d’Estienne de Saint Jean (17 rue
Gaston de Saporta). |
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Access
to the private and semi-private Aix is sometimes a matter of luck,
a courtyard and grand staircase glimpsed through a half-open doorway,
hôtel d’Albertas, idem the hôtel d’Estienne de
Saint Jean. A redeeming feature of the Crédit Lyonnais bank
on the Cours Mirabeau is the monumental stone staircase on the left
of the entrance to what is still, after all, the hôtel de Forbin. |
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The
revolutionary epoch added little to Aix’s architectural inheritance.
However, two remarkable landmarks, entirely different in conception,
purpose,
and execution, originate from this same period. For differing reasons,
they have left their mark on the city : |
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The
late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries reveal an Aix reduced from
its rank of "capital" to that of souspréfecture. The
great surges in town development, mercifully, were restricted principally
to "cosmetic" improvement (the fountains of la Rotonde and
the Roi René) and more earthy considerations of the water supply,
(canal Zola 1838-1854) and Canal du Verdon 1831-1875) , and the development
of roads, schools, and university faculties. Neglect, not always benign,
may be accounted as the chief source of Aix’s architectural preservation
in the nineteenth century. The Paris - Nice mainline railway was routed
through Avignon, Arles, Miramas and Marseille. Aix’s Rip van Winkle
snooze of over a hundred years meant that no great building sites have
slashed through the maze of the old town whose economy remained largely
rural. The chief town squares are still occupied by markets: place
des Prêcheurs, Place Richelme, and Place de la Mairie, while
the twentieth century has here, as elsewhere, fumbled an uncertain
path through a jungle gym of socio-economic demographics. |
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The
place des Cardeurs located behind the mairie, like a broad
gash in the city’s fabric, is an example, rare in Aix-en-Provence,
of a self inflicted wound, so far without equivalent aesthetic
or functional compensation. |
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To
the north on the hilltop near the atelier Cézanne stands
the cité Beisson (1955) built to accommodate the immigrant
Algerian population who had hitherto occupied that "run-down
city block" between the rue des Cordeliers and the rue des
Cardeurs. Beisson
now shares with Entremont, the mediaeval Tour César, the
Mont Sainte-Victoirei, Eguilles, and the Montaiguet, the onus
of dominating Aix’s horizon.
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Barre
among barres, (views of N. Marseille and Mazargue) Beisson is a
statement of architectural, economic, and social bankruptcy, less
depressing than many more recent models, but important as witness
to what in our age passes for communal living. Le
Corbusier whose cité radieuse, consciously copied or not,
gave birth to a hope that was stifled in infancy by dismal economic
reality. (quartiers nord Marseille, Corsy) Well intentioned efforts
by the local municipality have spared Aix much of the squalor associated
with larger cities. |
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The
Z.U.P. (Zone d’Urbanisation Prioritaire), the Z.A.C. (Zone
d’Aménagement Concerté), and a
profusion of individual housing developments from the (relatively)
modest Verte Colline to the grand standing of the nearby Parc
Mozart reflect a city whose scattered soul and resources are
no match for the merchants of the temple. Mirabeau-Sextius
is the name given to the immense building site now under construction
on Aix’s western front.
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This,
the former "industrial zone", once producing matches and
home to the rail freight station and abattoirs, are being hammered,
bulldozed, and refashioned into the image of a twenty first century
megopolis... no arhictectural Michelin stars awarded, either, to
the new industrial zone of Aix-les-Milles, and only a sigh to be heaved
at the pretentious and ponderous behemoths already created.
A special mention, however, must go to the source of
Aix’s history which, since earliest times, has given life, hope,
and prosperity to a city that bears its name :
Aix = aqua = water. Today’s fountains not only evoke
those of the past two thousand years, they attenuate the lethal effects
of
conflicting traffic flows meeting at right angles, and they bear
a message suggesting that deceleration, a touch of natural beauty,
and
a few curves help us to live longer, and better. |
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