Stairs of Gare de Marseille-Saint-Charles
Grand stone stairway of one hundred four steps, its landings carved with sculpted allegories finished only after years of delay.
This guide to the stairs of Gare de Marseille-Saint-Charles opens on the fourteen years it took to build them, starting with a design competition won in 1911 by architects Eugene Senes and Leon Arnal, and the war that stalled the project almost as soon as it began. It follows the work once it finally resumed in 1923, including the demolition of an old seminary to clear the site, and introduces the sculptors, among them Ary Bitter, Auguste Carli, Henri Raybaud and Louis Botinelly, still racing to finish their bronze and stone figures as the staircase opened to the public in 1925.
Audio guides are written and narrated by AI.