Les tours Labourdette à Marseille. Du modernisme fonctionnaliste à l'habiter populaire

The chapter illustrates the shift in the population inhabiting a 3-set of modernist towers built in Marseille by the architect J. H. Labourdette in 1960. The functionalist-style of the buildings, in reinforced concrete, was part of a renewal plan to raise the appeal of an abandoned area between Belsunce and the place called "de la Bourse". It was a successful bid to get a renovated affluent middle-class enclave amid an otherwise crowded, popular and chaotic district. If such a plan was consistent with 60s-70s housing policies displacing lower classes towards satellite cities, over the decades, a steady "re-appropriation by osmosi" has been shaping a nonconforming urban outcome of residential mixité and lower classes mobility. Today, half a century later, the towers are inhabited by popular classes too. In 2007, the towers were awarded the 20th century Heritage label because of its multicultural mark .