The emotional inauguration of the Atrium of Paul Valéry University in Montpellier, which already welcomes 7,000 people per day

Dévoilement de la plaque inaugurale de l’Atrium à l’université Paul Valéry. MIDI LIBRE – GIACOMO ITALIANO

L’Atrium, projet emblématique de l’Opération Campus à la proue de l’université Paul Valéry, vient d’être inauguré par les représentants de l’État, des collectivités et académiques. Dans une émotion partagée.

Delivered last April, with already "7000 passages per day, a third more compared to the old library", underlines the president of UM3, Anne Fraïsse, the atypical architectural object that is the Atrium, offers itself another chance to make a good impression, in the conquered and moved gaze of Michaël Delafosse, the rector Sophie Béjean and the prefect of Hérault François-Xavier Lauch.

Here it is officially inaugurated and this moment of emergence, well after the end, testifies to a desire to do well, public, political and academic. And to do well! Everyone salutes the prowess of the architect François Gillard, from the Scau agency, who is creating a building of 15,000 m² self-sufficient, since its inertia allows it to keep the temperature at the appropriate value, without air conditioning!

We no longer hang our bikes at the Vasarely gate

Floors which are like superimposed sheets, facades "in glass skin", thoughtful reading rooms like lofts "modular in space as well as in time", an atmosphere that evolves from one level to the next. rsquo;other, the new "new generation connected library" is a bibliophile, human and "ecological" concept, a thousand miles from the shelves that it was.

It is long gone by the time of the laying of the first stone in April 2019, which foreshadowed the new flagship of the Paul Valéry University, where one enters through the portal today refurbished, forged by Vasarely, – without always knowing it-, "where we hung the bikes", recalls Anne Fraïsse.

Fruit of Operation Campus at 5 billion euros

The Atrium is therefore one of the juicy fruits of the 2008 Operation Campus, endowed with 5 billion euros in favor of the ;university real estate, and which would benefit 12 sites including Montpellier to the tune of  325  M €, contributed by the president of the region Georges Frêche who declared  : "I would put 1 euro for each euro paid by the State".

After years of work, these sites where we never know from the outset where the architect wants to go, here is the library placed on the slope of the Mende road, frozen , bustling and ready to offer its best profile to local residents and users alike.

If she symbolizes silence, she was often talked about. The fault of tram line 5 perhaps, the headache caused by the removal of parking lots, the introduction of roundabouts and other one-way traffic, without tail or head!

Thought as a place of connection, beyond a place of study, we can carve out common moments there with those who have other things to do there or with whom we have everything to do! Life, conviviality, exchange are the key words on this constantly evolving campus. The proof: "A crèche will be born", promised Michaël Delafosse.

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