Marseille is often described by its contradictions: France’s oldest city, a Mediterranean gateway, a port of migration, and a place of diversity and exchange. It is celebrated for its vibrant culture and its picturesque waterfront. Yet beyond these familiar narratives lies another Marseille—one that reveals itself through ordinary streets, ageing façades, hand-painted signs, graffiti, shopfronts, gentrified cafés, and the countless traces left by those who inhabit and cosume the city.
As with The Alexandrian, Le Marseillais seeks to move beyond romanticised or monumental representations of the city. Rather than treating heritage as a collection of protected buildings or historical landmarks, the project approaches the city as a living organism, continuously shaped by its residents. The city’s Urban heritage is not static; it is rather daily negotiated through use, adaptation, appropriation, and collective social norms. Through drawing and urban observation, I document these everyday expressions that often fall outside conventional heritage discourse. The accumulation of posters, graffiti, vernacular typography, improvised architecture, political messages, and neighbourhood rituals forms an alternative archive of Marseille that speaks as much about its present as its past. Like Alexandria, Marseille is a city whose identity cannot be understood through architecture alone. Its buildings acquire meaning through the people who occupy, transform them, and continuously redefine their relationship with public spaces. By observing these interactions, Le Marseillais explores how social practices influence the built environment and, in turn, how the urban landscape shapes cultural identity. This project is not an attempt to preserve Marseille as an image frozen in time, but rather to understand the city through its ongoing transformation. It is an invitation to slow down, to look beyond the iconic postcard views, and to discover the richness of the ordinary urban fabric.
Ultimately, Le Marseillais extends a broader Mediterranean research journey, exploring how cities tell their stories through everyday life and how artistic practice can become a tool for observing, documenting, and rethinking the relationship between heritage, society, and the contemporary city.
