aixcentric

Glad to see that work at the Place des Precheurs is coming on, with paving going down around the Madeleine church, and terraces finished at the shops and cafés nearby.

Workers are busy laying 8000 tonnes of stone on this two-hectare site, at a cost of 15m euros. It all amounts to 30 months of work, currently running a month behind owing to weather-related problems, but the new space should be ready by next March. And it should look really good.

A local company, UrbaTP of Meyreuil, is paving the area, to a mosaic design with different sizes, shapes and shades of stone to ‘casser l’uniformité’.  There will be 90 variations in total. It’s a truly European project in that the stone comes from a Turkish quarry while the specialist masons are mainly Portugese.

There’s a 2-metre drop in level from top end to the bottom at the Passage Agard – steps and a water-feature will be fitted at the lower end while a pathway for the disabled will follow the facades of the building.

The food and artisanal/craft market stalls will be returning to the refurbished area but the textile market which used to meander around the back of the Palais de Justice will stay in the cours Mirabeau. This is for security reasons around this sensitive court-house – but I do feel the thrice-weekly textile market enlivens the cours with its bright colours.

As a working area, the new place will have access roads for vehicles and have ‘bornes’ for electricity supply to market stalls and also for Christmas lights (no more trailing cables on market day!).  There will be no public parking and a 20Km/h speed restriction.  Stone benches will be installed as well as some seating like the type at the Rotonde.

And thankfully three vitrines – glass windows – will be fitted so future generations can see the results of the archaeological digs that have been fascinating the townsfolk.  The three areas to be illuminated are the remains of the Roman road that led to the palace, the foundations of the palace, and the medieval cellars.  Elsewhere, special tiles will trace the outline of the Roman road and the palace walls that will lie beneath.

Twenty-five new trees will be planted: lime trees at the top and maples and Judas trees elsewhere. Underneath the whole area is a massive network of drains, new fresh water pipes, fibre optic cabling and electricity supplies.

What a massive undertaking – I think it will look so much better, airy and light, and show-case the buildings surrounding the area. Quite a framework too for the Picasso Museum which will inhabit the top right-hand corner.