Storage and Restoration Center for National Heritage Artworks (CICRP)

Client : Marseille Urban Authority- Urban Planning and Landmark Buildings Department
Contractor : ICADE 
Commissionned in 2000
Location: Marseille France
Surface: 6 000 sqm
Total consideration: 1.89 M€ HT
Silscreen glass artwork by Alfons Alt
Photographs : JM Landecy

Award : Winning Project of Trophées de la réhabilitation-September 2003
Follow link   to Trophées de la Réhabilitation website : http://www.tropheesdelarehab.arc hi.fr

The Storage and Restoration Center for National Heritage Artworks (6000 sqm) used the shell of an exceptional existing building, itself a landmark. The building housed part of the ancient tobacco processing plant of Seita. The location is remarkably central, in the heart of downtown Marseille, on the Euroméditerranée complex.
The renovated building will be home to restoration workshops, but i twill also feature offices, an exhibition hall, a conference room, a library, a cafeteria and various class rooms. 
The firm's guiding principle was nothing short of absolute respect for the existing building : the assignement addressed the inside of the building which was rehabilitated with a view to optimize the design and user friendly quality but it also involved the strengthening of the front wall façade, meant to be a beacon of newness.
The project used glass, steel and bricks. The building is the only passageway towards the rest of the buildings, and this ideal location is deliberately taken advantage of to advertise the avant-garde image of CICRP. The firm's concept is a slender and transparent as the building itself is stately and opacious. The clipped glass façade pays tribute to the historical legacy of the building in a patterned silkscreen of a tobacco stem in a plantation right before the harvest. Artist photographer Alfons ALT was contracted to produce the artwork for the site. 
The layering of old and new, the see through principle kindle the friendliest of  differences. The old remains visible, only through the new structure. The rehab purposely breathes life and newness into the sleepy  and decayed old building. This gentle colliding impart its true identity to CICRP , a heritage of decades of interaction, research and achievements in the realm of sciences.

Follow link to Euroméditerranée website: www.euromediterranee.fr/html/index.php?module=euromed&func=getop&m=&sm=&id_op=23
Follow link to Alfons Alt website: www.alfons-alt.com 
Follow link to CICRP website:www.cicrp.fr