What stories could these stones tell? We are standing before the Ancienne BU in Marseille. It whispers tales of academic ambition and the slow march of progress.
Let’s step back to a time when Marseille was finding its feet in higher education. Under the Ancien Régime there was no university. However, a medical teaching tradition existed for training master surgeons. The seeds of university life were sown after the Revolution. Universities were suppressed in 1793. Higher education institutions gradually rebuilt themselves. A need for libraries specific to these institutions grew. Thus began the intertwined story of Aix-Marseille University libraries.
Imagine Marseille in 1818. The city saw the birth of a Secondary School of Medicine and Pharmacy at the Hôtel-Dieu. It proved popular. By 1835, it had 37 students for the officat and 24 for the doctorate. By 1893, student numbers soared to 360. 153 of whom studied medicine. The school moved to the Daviel pavilion in 1875. It later moved to the Pharo in 1893. Space was a recurring problem.
Marseille craved a full university. It faced resistance. Aix sought to preserve its university town status. Marseille pushed to assert its prestige as a growing colonial metropolis. The Faculty of Science was established in 1854. It found its home in a former maternity hospital on the Allées de Meilhan. The architect Ferrié renovated the building, completing work in 1858. Student numbers exploded. In 1864 there were 4 chairs and 13 students. By 1898 there were 13 chairs and 177 students. By 1907 there were 3207 registered students.
The City of Marseille played a key role in these university creations. It provided land and buildings. It funded new constructions. The Palais du Pharo became available for the School of Medicine. Napoleon III originally built it. Eugénie returned it to the City after the Second Empire fell. It was not designed for teaching. So, it was remodelled. An extra floor was added. The Pavilion of Anatomy was built in 1896. It is now the headquarters of Aix-Marseille University.
A constant power struggle existed between Aix and Marseille. Marseille wanted a complete university within its boundaries. It wanted to reclaim law and literature studies. It also wanted to transform the School of Medicine into a full faculty. The latter only happened in 1930. Strong resistance came from Paris and Montpellier. Before then, medical students in Marseille could attend courses. They had to validate their thesis in a city with a proper faculty. Montpellier was often chosen.
In 1880, the library of the Faculty of Science was created. It was based on a merger of existing laboratory libraries. It was located on the ground floor of the Allées de Meilhan building. It seemed satisfactory until the early 20th century. The Pharo library worked similarly. It was housed in the School of Medicine building. It occupied former reception rooms on the first floor. Its high ceilings required ladders. Large windows faced the mistral winds. There was no staff room.
These libraries shared similar layouts. They had a reading room. It contained reference books. There was an office for the librarian. Storage was off-limits to the public. All were housed in buildings not designed as libraries. When books overflowed they took over nearby rooms.
So here stands the Ancienne BU, a silent witness. It saw the university’s humble beginnings. It stood as a symbol of Marseille’s aspirations. It was a place of learning. It fostered intellectual growth. It played its part in the city’s academic history.