J1 L'Odyssée, The Underwater City

Commissioned by Alfonso Femia Atelier(s), this video describes the project to redevelop the area occupied by the J1 hangar – built in the 1920s by Gaston Gastel – in the port of Marseilles. As intended by the architects, it captures the quest for dialogue with the light that turns towards the horizon and crosses the J1 structure, and for its redesign with a suspended part and an ‘underwater’ part. By creating a continual suspension between the water and the sky, there is complete integration of architecture and nature, harbour and city, in the special Mediterranean atmosphere of Marseilles. It seems to be saying: “J1’s horizon is that of the sea merging with the sky and of the sky merging with the sea. Feel it, discover it, experience it at different levels, through different worlds, from the city to the harbour and from the harbour to the sea.”