May 30: Pierre Vivres (Zaha Hadid, architect)

 There is a large modern building outside the center of Montpellier that grabs- no, demands- your attention.  It is relatively low-rise and situated near a major highway interchange, and Gary and I have passed it a couple of times (usually while lost trying to return a rental car at the train station, which is not even close to nearby).  We learned that there is a particular building in Montpellier that one of our housesitters who has a strong interest in architecture has always wanted to visit, and later we learned that the striking building that we had seen is that building!  This further piqued my interest and so I figured out how to get to it without getting lost in a rental car and took the self-guided tour.

 The building is called Pierre Vivres (Living Stones) and houses the "county" (Département de l'Hérault) archives, sports department, and mediatheque*.  There is a separate exhibition gallery and a large mezzanine that was being cleared of another exhibit the day I was there. An anteroom of the mediatheque is a "young citizens space" with computers and resources for job searching and career advancement. It is staffed during limited times a couple of days a week by career counseling professionals.

The building's name comes from a quote from François Rabelais (16th-century French writer and humanist), "Je ne bâtis que pierres vives, ce sont hommes", which translates to, "I only build living stones, they are men".

 The architect of this building is Zaha Hadid, and I really enjoyed reading about her** and seeing pictures of her other major works.  She died at the young age of 65 due to a heart attack.  

Here are my photos, though iphone photos don't come close to doing it justice.  I found it a very intriguing and relaxing space. It was a very enjoyable outing!

Notes:

* Bibliotheque is the French word for library; all the libraries in France are now called mediatheques, presumably acknowledging that information is no longer limited to the printed form.

**https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zaha_Hadid

 

 From the interchange you can kind of imagine a tree lying on its side, with the trunk to the right and branches reaching to the left. (This was explained by a model which had been displaced by the exhibit that was being dismantled, leaving the model impossible to photograph in any helpful way.)

Approaching the entrance from one end (the "trunk") of the building, opposite the side facing the interchange:

(My timing happened to be good: I did not stage the walker to provide perspective)

That walker 2 shots back was emerging from this overhang:

The lobby and exit from the exhibition space:

The other end of the lobby (in both of these, my back  is to the front entrance).

The view out the front of the building, from the mezzinine one floor up from the lobby:

The view toward the back of the mezzanine, in the direction of the road interchange, after the exhibit panels above were removed:

From the anteroom of the Archives, which displayed some of its historical collection, including this antique oboe (which I photographed for Zina):

Looking through the glass wall from that anteroom to the historic records research area:

The mediatheque display of books about Zaha Hadid and her work:

(The place is deserted because it was closed to the public on Tuesdays, the weekends and holiday Mondays being its busiest days. I convinced a skeptical librarian to let me come in for a couple of photos.)