The large building, today known as Les Docks, designed by Gustave Desplaces and constructed between 1858 and 1864 on the model of the warehouses in the docklands of London, looks like a stone ship looming over the wharves of the port of Marseille.

Rightly or wrongly, its designer is credited with the idea of having associated the construction with a symbolic and imaginative calendar: 365 meters in length, the number of days in a year, four courtyards, like the seasons, fifty-two doors, and seven stories... Urban myth or the truth? What is certain is that esoteric symbolism and a taste...