At the top of the Palais Longchamps, house of the Musee des Beaux Arts and the Musee d’Histoire Naturelle, is a hilly park, also created during the XIX century. It used to host an « exotic style » zoo, as was the hype at that time. If the installations are now considered much too small to receive live animals (any installation is much too small anyway, I find any kind of zoo depressing, the idea of watching prisoners sunk in their neurosis doesn’t appeal at all to me…), the refurbished buildings and cages now showcase flashy resin animals, bringing some colour to the park (Marseille doesn’t particularly shine by the maintenance of the parks and/or their landscaping). Some of the buildings are quite surprising and show that period’s fascination for far away lands and cultures reinterpreted by local architects in those oriental fantasies.
