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Heritage classified

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Origin and history

The Vieille Charité, located in the Cartier district of Marseille, was built between the end of the 17th and the beginning of the 18th century according to the plans of Pierre Puget. This monument, designed to house the needy within the framework of the "great lock-up", reflects Baroque architecture with its oval dome chapel and its interior galleries. Ranked a historic monument in 1951, it was saved from imminent destruction in the 1950s through restoration campaigns conducted between 1960 and 1986.

The initial project, launched in 1622 to bring together the beggars from Marseille, ended in 1640 with the laying of the first stone. Pierre Puget, an architect born in the district, proposed in 1671 an ambitious plan: a closed set of four wings around a central courtyard, with a chapel in the heart of the device. The works, slowed down by financial difficulties, were completed in 1745 under the direction of François Puget, son of Pierre. The chapel, financed by a donation from Honoré de Seigneuret, was completed in 1704, after the death of its designer.

In the 19th century, Old Charity gradually lost its charitable vocation. It was transformed into a barracks and then a slum in the 20th century and still housed 150 families in precarious conditions after the Second World War. Its renovation, initiated in 1961, revived the building, which now houses museums (Mediterranean archaeology, African and oceanic arts), research centres such as EHESS, and the Marseille International Poetry Centre (CipM).

The architecture of the Old Charity is distinguished by its blind exterior walls and its three levels of arcade galleries, open to a rectangular courtyard. The chapel, a Baroque masterpiece, is surmounted by an elliptical dome and decorated with a neoclassical porch added to the 19th century. Symbol of the repression of begging under the Ancien Régime, the hospice welcomed up to 1,059 residents in 1760, employed in workshops or placed as servants.

Ranked a historic monument in 1951, the site was saved by the intervention of André Malraux, then Minister of Culture, who released funds for its restoration in the 1960s. The crown's pink stones, characteristic of the facades, were replaced by identical ones, and the chapel reopened in 1981. Since then, Old Charity has become a major cultural hub, combining heritage, research and contemporary creation.

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