The rooftop of Le Corbusier's Cité Radieuse has become a museum

Marseille, 280 Boulevard Michelet. Here, in 1952, the Swiss architect Le Corbusier inaugurated his Cité Radieuse, a rectangle of concrete always exposed to the sun, divided into 337 apartments that combine "the conditions of happiness" and, in addition to the individual housing units, includes school, doctor, garden, boulangerie, office, hotel. The legacy of this "city of madmen", the very first experiment in "shared economy", recently declared by UNESCO "World Heritage Site", was rediscovered a few years ago by Ora-ïto. 

The enfant terrible of French design, who became famous when he was just nineteen as a "hacker designer" after designing fake objects for luxury brands and launching them on the market with fictitious advertising campaigns, bought the roof terrace and transformed it into MaMo (Marseille Modulor), a contemporary art center open only during the summer. In an interview, Ora-ïto explains how the idea was conceived:

"I'm from Marseille and as a child I was bewitched by that building. It didn't seem true to me when I heard that the roof was for sale. At first I didn’t know what to do with it, I just knew I wanted to restore it to its original design — the one Le Corbusier had envisioned for it. so, I went to the Le Corbusier foundation and did a lot of research. Once the space was ready, I still didn’t know what to do with it. it was then that I found out that Le Corbusier used to host, on this same rooftop, the avant-garde art festival — a festival that mixed dance, sculpture and music. when I saw those images full of sculptures and performances, I knew I had to turn the rooftop into a contemporary art space”.

Following a €7 million disbursement (together with other investors) and a long 3-year restoration, the French designer realized his dream in 2013 by opening the MaMo with an exhibition by Xavier Veilhan.  Then it was Daniel Buren (who Ora-ïto convinced to participate in the project sleeping outside his door for a few days), Kavier Veilhan with his large blue bust depicting Le Corbusier, the optical art of Felice Varini, the big arrow of Jean-Pierre Raynaud, Olivier Mosset with his iridescent panels. This year's protagonist is Alex Israel, who recreated the Bat-signal of the famous Gotham City hero with a game of projections. The work gave the artist the opportunity to explore a childhood memory linked to Tim Burton's 1989 film, which celebrates its thirtieth anniversary in 2019.