The roads called "corniche" have a landscape function that Stephen Liegard expresses with great lyricism in his comments on the Côte d'Azur :“She is the beginning of this famous and vertiginous cornice which, jetty on the ridge of rocks,like a protruding molding, crown the sea, overhang the abyss, laughs at the precipices, passes over towns or hamlets… It is the incomparable jewel, the pink and blue pearl that divers have not yet brought back.”

The construction of these balcony roads, made during the 19th century, refers to a new sensitivity to the maritime landscape ; the desire to connect an urban space with the sea newly perceived as nature. Different urban spaces will be “connected” to the sea, including that of leisure.

By connecting the different parts of the city, the Corniche helped to maintain the feeling of belonging to the same community which tended to get lost in a city that was too large, thus promoting social continuity through spatial continuity. Need we recall that in a century, the city, grouped together on some three hundred hectares around the Old Port, extended over more than eight thousand hectares : it has become a suburban city with a communication network that is difficult to structure. The discovery of the shore in the 19th century undoubtedly influenced the choice of the coastline to the south of the city, as a place of secondary residences to constitute the Marseille tradition of dual residency : a townhouse for the working week, A country house (the bastide) for weekend rest : “the people of Marseille lived in two towns in one : one every day, the city-port, the other on holiday : the countryside town of villages and bastides, their second homes (rural villas combining yachting and agricultural land) ». This leads to a specific urbanization of the land – made possible by the extent of the town – that Marcel Roncayolo calls the city of the countryside…”

Sources : Bertile Beunard, doctor of education, is a teacher at Aix-Marseille II University and associate researcher at the School of Advanced Studies in Social Sciences of Marseille (S.H.A.D.Y.C.).