Priztker Prize winner in 2004, the architect Zaha Hadid, and André Vezinhet, Head of the French Département of Hérault, will inaugurate on September 13th 2012 a remarkable new building: pierrevives.

Pierresvives is situated in Montpellier, France’s eighth-largest and most dynamic city. It has been conceived as an innovative cultural offer, to meet the needs of the area’s significant economic growth and increasing population of over 1,000 inhabitants per month.

For the Département of Hérault, whose capital, Montpellier, has recently been named one of the New York Times’ “Best Places to visit in 2012”, the commissioner and the architect have planned to concentrate three civic institutions in a single location: the public archives, a multimedia library and Hérault Sport.

Following the call for submissions launched by Département of Hérault in 2002, Zaha Hadid understood at once the specific requirements of the endeavour, and her submission was quickly singled out. Her futuristic structure, a sprawling edifice of swirly white concrete layers and green-tinted glass, takes on the architectural challenge of accommodating an ever increasing public whilst ensuring the conservation of valuable historical archives.

Pierresvives building thus embodies a distinctly contemporary vision of culture and public access, actively contributing to the area’s growing reputation as a paradise for contemporary architecture. Hadid’s building will be the cornerstone of the pierresvives ecodistrict whose construction will take place over the coming years.

With this inauguration, pierresvives becomes the third project built by the now internationally acclaimed Anglo-Iraqi architect in France, after the car park and Terminus Hœnheim-North in Strasbourg and the CMA/CGM Tower in Marseille.