The building is signed Rudy Ricciotti.
The architect who gave his letters of nobility to concrete had built a “stadium” in Vitrolles, in a canyon exploited for bauxite, very close to the highway between Marseille and Aix.
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The project was for a 5,000-seat hall in black concrete that would host both music and sport.
It was used from 1994 to 1998, then sank into abandonment.
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Rudy Ricciotti, the archi-passionate
Pierre Audi had the idea of bringing the festival there.
“The building was in ruins.
We restored some of the seats, set the gauge to a thousand spectators and checked the acoustics
, he says, having fun with his invention.
I was born in Lebanon, a country where there are no theatres.
Audi took Romeo Castellucci to the scene.
The Italian director had opened Audi's mandate in Aix with a moving
Requiem
by Mozart conducted by Raphaël Pichon, which has remained in the memories.
There was an inventory of extinct species.
As a diptych, Pierre Audi commissioned an installation from him this time to accompany Mahler 's
“Resurrection”
Symphony conducted by Esa-Pekka Salonen at the head of the Orchester de Paris.
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Rudy Ricciotti, in disarmed concrete
“It's an installation and not a show like
Requiem was
.
During the hour that the symphony lasts, the public will be as if in front of an animated tableau.
It was ordered well before the war in Ukraine but it will make it resonate in a very unique way”
, warns Pierre Audi.