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Yann Kersalé talks to LUCI about the Old Port and MUCEM

 

The upcoming City under Microscope in Marseille (18 – 21 September 2013) will reveal how this city in urban renewal, and the European Capital of Culture 2013, is using light to enhance its cultural heritage and revitalise districts.

French artist Yann Kersalé, one of the key speakers at the event, tells us more about the new lighting for the Old Port of Marseille and the MUCEM (Museum of European and Mediterranean Civilisations) two of the major urban renewal projects in Marseille.

What was the context behind your work on each of these projects – the MUCEM and the Old Port?
My job here is to simply work as a visual artist and sculptor, given that light has the power to transform and to convey emotions and sensations. My work is a work of art – the technique serves my percept and my creation and not the inverse.
In both cases – for the MUCEM as well as the Old Port – the reflective process focused on giving special meaning to the nocturnal aspect of these two entities. It involved the creation of what I like to call a geo-poetic nocturnal landscape.

 

The Old Port of Marseille is one of the city’s emblematic sites, and a major renovation project within the framework of Marseille-Provence 2013. Tell us about your lighting concept for this area?
Personally, I prefer to use the term percept rather than concept, because percept involves feeling.

The Old Port is both the entry and the exit of this 1000 year-old harbour – the extension of Marseille’s mythical Cannebière street into the sea.

My vision for the Old Port tells the story of Marseille’s special dialogue with the sea. The Mediterranean is reflected in the Old Port of Marseille. The idea was to work with extreme minimalism, and ensure an uncluttered urban landscape and visual comfort.

For the quays of the port, I designed a range of lamp masts customized for the Old Port. All these masts have the same needle-like shape – only their height varies to accommodate the different widths of various paths.

Designing masts disappearing into the sky, installing the least possible number of them, and incorporating the most advanced technologies, were the guiding principles from the beginning to the completion of this project.

I wanted to design an object that has a minimal presence on the site, but that provides all the functionalities required for adequate illumination on the ground, thus avoiding the installation of unnecessary additional luminous objects.

This has enabled the creation of open spaces and the large agora which now forms the end of the port.

Another element was to mark the pontoons so each row becomes white, in contrast to the boat hulls in blue. I would like to point out that I often use blue to obtain an element of contrast rather than to obtain the color itself.

 

What inspired the dazzling façade of the MUCEM ?
I have composed a poetic description expressing my inspiration for the MUCEM:

A cultural edifice resonating the Mediterranean, brought to life by the sea, the MUCEM at night becomes a symbol of its many blue shades.
A continuous transaction between all the cultures exposed at its heart and this mythical sea of such strong character.
A perpetual pulse of light thrills its lace-like facades.
The sea is a constant, embedded in its skin to signal the importance of its existence in the exhibitions within its walls.
There is now something other than a sardine that marks the entrance of the harbor of Marseille: it is the MUCEM, a MER-VEILLE.

So, the idea from the very beginning was of course to be coherent with the honeycomb-like skin of this building – which is what initiated this notion of fragmented turquoise and blue light. This light contains and conveys a sort of transparency and link to the close maritime presence – a skin of shimmering scales.

 

 

 

 

 

Images © Xavier Boymond

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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