The Festival For Lively Architecture is an annual event in Montpellier, France, that features installations and pavilions by young architects and architecture collectives. The festival seeks to highlight the work of this younger generation, and in doing so, to familiarize the general public with architecture and architectural discourse. This year, eleven firms/collectives participated, their installations spread throughout the historic center of Montpellier.

AtelierVecteur created a welcome pavilion for the festival to orient visitors and help them find all the pavilions in the maze of the city center. Constructed completely out of wood ‘sticks,’ the pavilion is formed by the intersection of a cube and what the designers describe as an ‘ovoid.’ The intention was to present viewers with a formal paradox, eliciting interest and inviting them to experience the interior of the pavilion. Most visitors, though, will be interested in the jarring juxtaposition between the cube and its context, between a platonic form made of wood and centuries-old ornate structures of stone.

Images: AtelierVecteur via COMPLEX

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