Alternative Initiatives, Cultural Intermediaries and Urban Regeneration: the Case of La Friche (Marseille)

Abstract

This paper discusses the role played by the cultural regeneration of a tobacco factory known as La Friche in the urban renaissance of Marseille. It builds an analytical framework to decrypt the extent to which the network and strategy building, the mobilization capacity and the project-making ability was developed in the two main episodes of governance by the cultural intermediaries Système Friche Théâtre (the collective in charge of the cultural initiative). This led to the rise of La Friche as one of the key cultural facilities in Marseille within the project Euroméditerranée and in the successful application to the 2013 European Capital of Culture schemes highlighting the sustainable development of this initiative initially supposed to be temporary.

Notes

The perimeter of Euroméditerranée covered 313 hectares in 1995. It has been extended to 483 hectares in 2007.

Unit1 was bought by the City Council in 1994 to implement the heritage centre. Unit 2 was bought by the EPAEM in 1997. Finally, Unit 3 was bought by the City Council in 1998.

Even if SFT clearly insisted on the fact that the role of La Friche was not limited to the scale of the neighbourhood of La Belle de Mai, it managed to initiate collaborations with local communities for example with local schools via the “Réseau d'Education Prioritaire St Mauront – Belle de Mai”.

This is particularly relevant on their website.

Previous workers left the district and have been replaced by new migrants some of them in illegal situation and in a (very) weak economic situation.