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La Vieille Charité
La Vieille Charité, in the heart of the Panier district in Marseille's 2nd arrondissement, is a building raised in the seventeenth century, to plans by Pierre Puget, to house the destitute and poor of the city. It corresponds to the Marseille implementation of the Confinement movement that marked the Grand Siècle. The hospice is representative of seventeenth-century architecture, in particular through the superb Baroque chapel by Puget and its ovoid dome. Gradually losing its purpose at the end of the nineteenth century, it was close to disappearing in the 1950s, occupied only by poor residents living in wretched conditions. The chapel and hospice were listed as a Historic Monument by decree of 29 January 1951. The ensemble, which underwent deep renovation from the 1960s to the 1980s, is today one of the cultural institutions of the City of Marseille.
