MuCEM: Le jardin des migrations

These photos were taken on March 12, 2017

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This garden at MuCEM is a cultural selection of Mediterranean plants seen & used for millennia by people across the Mediterranean, in a variety of ways.  The plants in this garden have often migrated with those people.  It's a xeric (dry) garden representative of the of Mediterranean climate & necessary in this exposed & windy position on the roofs of the museum.  The garden spreads widely over the the ramparts of the 17th-century Fort Saint-Jean with panoramic views of Marseille, where human migrants arrived long before the earliest recorded settlement by Phoceaen Greeks 2,600 years ago.  15 botanical landscapes include the Garden of Wind, aromatics, Wild Salads of the Fort, a formal myrtle garden, potager, medicinal garden, olive grove & a garden of stone slabs.  They were planted by Olivier Filippi, a nurseryman & Véronique Mure, a botanist.  I was more fascinated with the gardens & the architecture of the fort, than the striking new museum building & the very interesting displays there.