La tête carrée, Blockhead building, Library offices headquarters , in Nice France
The “Square Head” is a sculpture by the french artist Sacha Sosno, and it is also the very first giant sculpture to have been transformed in a habitable building. The city of Nice has an unique architectural building made after a sculpture of the artist called Sacha Sosno. He’s one of the main artists of the area and founded in the 1960’s the modern art movement called “Ecole de Nice”. 1989 saw the birth of a huge project in Nice called “Promenade Des Arts”. The purpose was to build a brand new cultural complex with a Museum of Modern Art (or MAMAC) a new city theater and a new city library. The architect in charge was Yves Bayard. The theater and museum were built, but for the library the city had no more money left and for over 10 years, there was a kind of empty closed space waiting for the finalization of the original project. Meanwhile, the architect Yves Bayard worked with his friend Sacha Sosno to realize a crazy idea: transform a sculpture in a building where people could live! The very first habitable giant sculpture! At the end of the 1990’s, the project of the city library could finally be continued and the most spectacular part of the new plans was to make a giant building out of Sosno’s famous sculpture called “the square head”, where the administration and offices of this cultural complex could install their headquarters. The construction needed 2 years (2000-2002) to achieve this impressive building: 28 meters high with 7 floors (3 in the neck and 4 in the head) and place for 40 people!! At the time, the people of Nice where not very enthusiastic about this project, many said that this head-building was ugly, some others loved it at the first sight… Today, it’s part of the sightseeing of Nice (even if you can’t visit it from the inside… It is a very unique realization of a habitable giant sculpture! So if you are in Nice, you really MUST see this building!!
Size: 5400px × 3600px
Location: Nice France
Photo credit: © DV TRAVEL / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: architecture, bibliotheque, block, blockhead, building, carré, france, head, headquarters, la, landmark, librairy, library, modern, nice, sasha, sosno, square, ête
