Halle aux grains

The Halle aux Grains wears a stone clock tower that cuts a sharp, square silhouette against the sky. Built in seventeen forty-seven, this building served as the central marketplace for the grain trade in Aix-en-Provence. Merchants gathered here to regulate prices and weigh their sacks under the watchful eyes of the city authorities. In nineteen twenty-five, the grain sellers moved on, and the interior was hollowed out to host the municipal library, where card catalogs replaced the heavy bushels of wheat.