Les secrets de l'Hôtel de Région pour les Journées du Patrimoine à Marseille

For the European Heritage Days, the Hôtel de Région in Marseille is exceptionally opening its doors on September 19 and 20, 2026. Ancient remains, bold contemporary architecture and monumental works of art: this emblematic building on Boulevard Charles-Livon reveals more than 2,000 years of unsuspected history, hidden in the very heart of the city. The Hôtel de Région in Marseille, a place steeped in 2,000 years of history Every day, thousands of people from Marseille pass by the Hôtel de Région without suspecting the richness of its past. Yet the site of the Butte des Carmes carries centuries of memories. Just 160 years ago, a hill dominated this neighborhood before being gradually leveled in the 1980s to make way for the vast redevelopment project that gave rise to the current building. The Heritage Days in Marseille offer the perfect opportunity to explore this space from a different perspective. Even before the building was constructed, archaeological excavations in this area uncovered traces of Greek settlements and remains of potters’ workshops, testifying to intense human activity since Antiquity. The site is therefore one of the oldest inhabited sites in Marseille, a fact few visitors imagine as they walk through its doors. The site also houses two remarkable witnesses to its medieval and prison-related past. The only surviving arch of the former Huveaune aqueduct, built in the 12th century to supply Marseille with water, stands just in front of the entrance, an unlikely remnant in the heart of a modern administrative center. Beside it, a khachkar, an Armenian stele carved and donated by the city of Etchmiadzin to the Provence-Alpes-Côte-d’Azur Region, recalls the area’s openness to the cultures of the world. Architecture, art and heritage: what the Rotunda really conceals The Hôtel de Région is actually made up of two separate buildings. The first, Les Présentines, was built between 1984 and 1986 on the site of a former women’s prison built between 1820 and 1823 by architect Michel-Robert Penchaud. This penitentiary exclusively housed female inmates until 1943, including several members of the Resistance imprisoned during the Second World War. The current building’s name pays tribute to this history. The second building, La Rotonde, completed in 1991, was designed by architect Claude Parent, a major figure in contemporary French architecture, together with Marseille architects Christian Biaggi and Bruno Maurin. From the entrance, the space is striking: an immense light-filled atrium, monumental glass roofs and spectacular volumes. The site’s distinctive feature is its gently sloping passageways, directly inspired by the concept of the “oblique function” developed by Claude Parent, a student of Le Corbusier. This principle favors inclined planes over vertical and horizontal lines, encouraging movement and an organization of space designed for the moving body. The visit also offers the chance to discover a remarkable collection of works integrated into the building’s architecture itself. The colored light effects in the atrium and the hemicycle were created by Father André Gence, an internationally renowned Marseille artist. In the hemicycle, Christian Jaccard’s monumental tapestries engage in dialogue with Claude Parent’s volumes, while the ceremonial room features a conceptual fresco by Max Charvolen, whose artistic creation extends onto the pillars and floor. An artistic ensemble of rare coherence in an institutional building.