The Dot Building

The South of France is filled with architecture from the 60s and 70s. On a walk from the Old Town in Aix de Provence (town of about 100,000 with architecture from the 5th to the 18th centuries); to the outskirts of the city, there's a weird and wild building, which I like to call the dot building.

It was built in traditional mid-century modern style--long lines of concrete steel, glass, zig-zagging roof lines, outlined in some serious black and white.

The building is home to the Foundation Vasarely. It was designed by Victor Vasarely, who's considered the Father of Op Art.

If you're going the way of Provence, this building should not be missed.

Digital Traveler's Googie Around the World

Hey, AOL, it's not only the United States that has Googie, France does a pretty good job and building the wild architecture known as mimetic or programmatic.

Here's my post about French Googie

The mountains around Aix are filled with images, the same landscapes that Cezanne painted in the nineteenth century. But the South of France is also filled with architecture from the 60s and 70s. On my walk from the Old Town in Aix ( town of about 100,000 with architecture from the 5th to the 18th centuries); I entered the outskirts of the city, most of which was built in the mid-century--long lines of concrete steel, glass, zig-zagging roof lines, outlined in bright colors.





I passed the public library where I saw books as buildings, a form of programmatic architecture.









Upon close inspection, one of the book buildings was built to replicate the cover of the book, "The Human Comedy".


I surveyed all sides and found that, facing away from the road, the building was all glass encased in a gridded steel frame.


After I had been sidetracked by this great architectural find, I resumed my walk to my planned destination, the Foundation Vasarely. This particular monument is about a 90 minute walk from Old Town and was desined by Victor Vasarely, who's considered the Father of Op Art. The first thing I found in this unique building of steel and glass under a facade of black and white dots, is that it's badly in need of a face lift.

Other than that I snapped up photos as the building offers photo ops where I could create my own op art (like pop art).