La Maison Diamantée, témoin du quartier Saint-Jean. Photographies et maquettes des collections publiques marseillaises.

The Marseille History Festival aims to bring citizens closer to their heritage and history through an original, diverse, and popular re-examination of the city’s past.

Led by the Marseille History Museum, this first pilot edition explores the theme “Marseille: Gateway to the World?” and examines the concepts of public history in Marseille and the city’s identity through the lens of migration, with a program of cultural events.

La Maison Diamantée is one of the few buildings in the Saint-Jean district to have escaped the destruction of February 1943.

This status forms the basis of the inaugural exhibition: the building is both the venue for the exhibition and its first exhibit. From its windows, visitors can see the urban landscape built where the one presented in the exhibition once stood. The exhibition traces the story of the northern shore of the Vieux-Port: a densely populated working-class neighborhood rooted in Marseille’s earliest history and that of its residents; the roundup of its inhabitants and its destruction by the German occupying forces with the cooperation of the Vichy authorities; and then its reconstruction, which imposed a different urban form and a different population.

Founding port, lived-in neighborhood, destroyed and then rebuilt: La Maison Diamantée has lived through these four periods, and the exhibition invites visitors to revisit them from within one of the buildings that preserves their memory, through photographs from the Marseille History Museum’s collections, including the Detaille collection, as well as the municipal archives.

-A cultural heritage project to open La Maison Diamantée to the people of Marseille:

The project aims to open a local venue dedicated to promoting and raising awareness of Marseille’s heritage, particularly its architecture, and its history. It will eventually develop around three main areas: -a heritage resource and documentation center, -an exhibition space, -a space for workshops and educational activities.

The venue is intended for all audiences, especially the people of Marseille, so they can learn more about their heritage and make it their own. It also aims to be a place for dialogue between residents, associations, and institutions.