Timeline

Heritage classified

Key figures

Origin and history

The Pavillon de partager des eaux des Chutes-Lavie, nicknamed Le Tore, is a civil engineering building built between 1899 and 1906 in Marseille, in the Chutes-Lavie district (4th arrondissement). Designed by the engineer Baptistin Duce, it was part of the freshwater hydraulic network supplying the city's new northern neighbourhoods, as well as the steam locomotives of the Chemin de Fer Paris-Lyon-Marseille via the rotunda of Rue Pautrier. Its architecture combines an administrative building in bricks and stones, surmounted by a Canal de Marseille coat of arms, and a massive octagonal technical structure, housing a system of distribution of water by gravity.

The pavilion played a central role in the double-canalization set up in 1897 to fill the gaps in the existing network. The waters, transported from the Canal de Marseille, were distributed via eight outlying descents under a metal roof. After World War II, the open-air system was replaced by a pressurized tore. Disused in 2002, the site was listed as historical monuments in 1998 and labeled Heritage of the 20th century. Its roof was restored in 2013, preserving a unique testimony of Marseille hydraulic engineering.

Architecturally, the building is distinguished by its slate roof arranged in scale and its central tank, now disused. The technical part, with thick walls calculated to resist the thrusts, housed a vertical brick duct stowing into an annular vault. The project, initiated in 1894, was led by the Gassier company under the direction of engineer Hugues. Although it was after the Longchamp Palace, it was a functional extension, allowing water to be distributed under pressure to high-altitude neighbourhoods, such as Sainte-Marthe.

Located at the junction of the railway tunnels of Saint Charles and the Chartreux, the pavilion illustrates the adaptation of Marseille infrastructures to the growing urbanization of the north of the city. Its inscription as a historic monument underscores its heritage importance, combining industrial utility and architectural quality. The museum projects envisaged since the 1980s, however, did not succeed, leaving the site in a state of partial conservation, despite the protection of its totality (box D 100).

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