The Pierre Bottero media library, recently completed by Dominique Coulon & associés in Pélissanne, Provence, is yet another piece of evidence of the ability of French administrations. Through well-managed competition processes, they prove to be able to consistently channel the efforts of good designers for the realization of high-quality public buildings and urban spaces.
The new media library is an excellent contemporary architecture. It is simultaneously commensurate and acclimated in its context – for its scale, for the unassuming simplicity of its language, for the grain and the sandy nuances of its elevations – and an exceptional occurrence, stressing the civic role of the institution that it hosts. An immense, curved glazing surface folds around a centuries-old plane tree, making it the lush background for visitors’ reading time. This is a surprise and a welcomed, abstract counterpoint to the picturesque maison Maureau, which the new volume integrates as an extension.
This device, alongside uninterrupted windowpanes on the ground floor, emphasizes the unity between the media library and the surrounding park, that also functions as a public passage through the block. Dominique Coulon & associés redesing this green space and enhance its porosity towards the street. An old building is emptied and transformed into an open covered pavilion, vibrant with the ancient textures of stone and wood, and filled with zenithal light thanks to its translucent canopy.
The project for the Pierre Bottero media library also shows the great potential stemming from a well-though but active reuse of historical constructions, preserved as heritage in their most valuable elements – here, the maison Maureau – but also rediscovered as the place for resolutely contemporary spaces and aesthetics.
- Project:
- Media library and park
- Location:
- Pélissanne, France
- Architects:
- Dominique Coulon & associés
- Project leaders:
- Dominique Coulon, Jean Scherer
- Project team:
- Gautier Duthoit, David Romero-Uzeda, Javier Gigosos, Diego Bastos-Romero, Olivier Poulat, Margot Machin, Thomas Bukenmeyer, Florent Revel, Théo Petit, Yannick Signani
- Structures:
- Batiserf Ingénierie
- Landscape design:
- Bruno Kubler
- Area:
- 982 sqm (media library), 3,450 sqm (public park)
- Completion:
- 2020