The "Mediterranean University Center", was built in 1933 on the Promenade des Anglais. Its fascinating old structure contains a lecture hall, theater style seating, a magnificent ceiling, and upstairs large open windows showing the Riviera coastline.
Paul Valéry, an influential French poet, was its first director. He said about it : "Hopefully, for the glory of Nice and the Nation, our Centre is obvious and necessary, some day, as the place of development of a Mediterranean knowledge".