Pavillon des Arts de Pau, Art museum and cultural center in Pau, France

Pavillon des Arts de Pau is a multi-storey exhibition building set into the slope facing the Place Royale. Its lower level is red-orange with white pilasters, the upper cream, with tall arched openings, a balustraded balcony and green-shuttered windows. In 1907 Léopold Carlier wrapped the 1831 structure in a reinforced-concrete shell whose balustrade links it to the Boulevard des Pyrénées.

Pau authorised a bathhouse here in 1828; it ran from 1831 to 1884 and also held two ten-room apartments for rent. The town bought it in 1884 and enlarged it to house the temporary Casino du Midi, a social venue with salons, a ballroom, a billiard room and a covered promenade along the south facade, until it closed in 1899 when Palais Beaumont opened. In 1907 Léopold Carlier wrapped the original facade in a reinforced-concrete frame, and the roof became the terrace of the Place Royale.

The building's name comes from its 20th-century role as an exhibition hall, and it now houses the Centre d'interprétation de l'architecture et du patrimoine, tied to Pau's Villes et pays d'art et d'histoire label. Its past uses ranged from a bathhouse to the provisional Casino du Midi, a social hub with salons, a ballroom and a billiard room until 1899.

The building is reached on foot by a path or by the Pau funicular, whose upper station is on the roof terrace of the Pavillon des Arts, linking the Boulevard des Pyrénées to the train station. The structure sits on the slope facing the Place Royale, so the entrance from below is at street level while the roof opens onto the square above.

The funicular inaugurated in 1908 does not start at street level: its upper station sits on the roof of the Pavillon des Arts, which serves as the terrace of the Place Royale. The 1907 concrete shell by Léopold Carlier hides the original 1831 bathhouse facade, so the building is monumental from below and almost invisible from above.