To see one of southern France’s most distinctive buildings, visit La Tête Carrée, a sculpture and library at once. When it was installed in 2002, it was the world’s first inhabited monumental sculpture. The building’s nickname means The Square Head. The official title is Thinking Inside the Box, challenging assumptions about thought and tradition.
View the sculpture from three perspectives: far away, close and at nighttime. From afar, as cars whiz by on the busy street, appreciate the overall form of the structure, which seems simultaneously both impossibly big and too small.
Try to determine how the librarians who work here in the Louis Nucéra municipal library get up into the box containing their offices. It is tempting to picture them sidling up the curve of the shoulders. Appreciate the classic absurdist symbolism, which the sculptor Sacha Sosno celebrated alongside other local artists including Yves Klein and Henri Matisse.
Closer, admire the almost meditative lack of tension in the jaw and neck. Wander through the nearby gardens, which act as a sea of tranquility interspersed with other works of contemporary sculpture and surrounded by stone and concrete buildings. At night, return to see the building illuminated, with views of the offices inside adding a whole new dimension to the work.
Find La Tête Carrée in the middle of one of Nice’s busiest districts, north of Old Town. Take a tram from the main train station or walk here in 20 minutes. Walk from the port or travel by cab in less than 15 minutes. The Albert 1st Gardens are a 15-minute walk away. Limited metered parking is available nearby. The interior of the giant head is not open to the general public, though the gardens that surround it are freely accessible daily.
Meander along to Place Yves Klein to view the huge neck and chin, supporting an improbable-looking box nearly 100 feet (30 meters) tall.
