In 2016, the City of Marseille was awarded the position of the host city of the 13th edition of Manifesta. A pre-biennial process was set in motion, starting with an urban study named Le Grand Puzzle that aims to decipher the possibilities and complexities of Marseille. The study was conducted by Winy Maas, MVRDV’s leading architect, and his team from The Why Factory.
The study reveals the city’s specificities, possibilities, dreams, necessities and complexities, resulting in a multi-narrated, mosaic-like grand puzzle. Le Grand Puzzle is a tool for citizens to rethink the potential of their city and illustrates a path for a new, more accessible urban landscape.
“Le Grand Puzzle allows the contrasts and contradictions that characterise the city to emerge and speak for themselves. It is thus a preliminary portrait of Marseille, a mirror of its society aimed at unlocking fixations. It is meant to highlight and disseminate the beauty, needs and potentials of the city. It is a means for the artists, makers and designers involved in the biennial to broaden their knowledge of the city and to ultimately strengthen Marseille’s specific role within the archipelago of European cities.” Winy Maas, co-founder of MVRDV and director The Why Factory.
Taking Le Grand Puzzle as a starting point, Hedwig Fijen and Winy Maas invited two local city makers, Joke Quintens and Tarik Ghezali, to design and implement a democratic intervention entitled Le Tour de Tous les Possibles.
Based on topics presented in Le Grand Puzzle, 22 citizen workshops were developed in order to bring together around 500 Marseillais from diverse backgrounds and build Traits d’union.s (new alliances). They discussed societal, environmental and cultural issues and proposed bold new projects to improve the lives of Marseille’s inhabitants.
“Le Tour de Tous les Possibles and its unprecedented workshops came up with dozens of original ideas that we want to now concretise with Marseille’s civil society. For example, the Paquebot Radieux, which aims to transform a disused ship into an unusual place of living, mixing housing with shops, schools and culture. Continuing on from Le Tour de Tous les Possible, we propose to set up an ‘Assemblée de Tous les Possibles”, which would be a permanent citizens’ assembly of 101 Marseillais picked via a draw and representative of the population. This assembly would deliberate and invent new answers to the region’s problems, and this in close contact with the City. As a part of Manifesta’s Marseille heritage, carrying an often forgotten obvious fact: The population of Marseille has/is the solution !”
Tarik Ghezali from Marseille Solutions and Joke Quintens from Moving Marseille.
+ GET YOUR LIMITED EDITION OF “LE GRAND PUZZLE“
+ INFO ON LE TOUR DE TOUS LES POSSIBLES
[ WATCH VIDEOS TO LEARN MORE ]
MARSEILLE MOMENT VIDEO:
A workshop organised from the 8th until the 13th of November 2018 at J1, by Winy Maas and The Why Factory.
ONLINE PANEL DISCUSSION LE GRAND PUZZLE – 29.08.20 :
WINY MAAS’ INTERVIEW:
JOKE QUINTENS’ INTERVIEW:
TARIK GHEZALI’S INTERVIEW:
#MarseillePossibles #Manifesta13Marseille
