Bougenot Pavilion

The pavilion houses two new services:

- A press and documentary area: Located on the ground floor, its workroom and reading room allow users to consult regional, national and international publications of the current year online. In addition, the Press and Documents area provides users with documentary files on the most current events. Permanent assistance is provided for any documentary research.

- A visually impaired area: This area is equipped to receive disabled users and offers collections of books, audio tapes and CD-ROMs, while promoting the use of Braille. Various books and specific materials are available to help with these particular readings and writings. 5,000 " audiobook " tapes and about a hundred CDs can be borrowed and consulted.

A BIT OF HISTORY :
The Pavillon Bougenot owes its name to Emile Bougenot, a French engineer employed by CAIL company to equip the central factories of Martinique towards the end of the 19th century.

Emile Bougenot, by marrying the only daughter of Eugène Eustache, owner of the "Galion" sugar factory, became one of the most powerful industrialists of the end of the 19th century and inherited, at the death of his wife, the Bougenot Pavilion, located on a plot of land adjoining the government palace (now the Prefecture).

Acquired by Eugène Eustache in 1872, the Pavilion is a bourgeois mansion with an original surface area of 600 m2, with a concrete base and metal framework. Concrete and wrought iron are combined with wood, which was used extensively in its construction: its veranda is sheltered by a wrought iron balconnet with a wooden floor running along its four walls. Its high wooden windows with small panes of glass and its fine interior columns recall the island's colonial style and past. Finally, its gardens, with their precise and particular layout, offer some specimens of tropical flora, notably magnificent royal palms which make the place a green corner in the capital. For a long time, the Pavilion served as the residence of Emile Bougenot, who also used it as an agency and a connection point for all his business affairs.

Under the Vichy regime, the Pavillon, where the propaganda department was located, housed the services of Admiral Robert. After the war, and until 1949, it was occupied by Radio Broadcasting and finally in 1961, the General Council acquired it and allocated it to the Health and Social Services Department.

EMILE BOUGENOT :
Engineer of Arts et Métiers, shareholder of many sugar factories in Martinique, Emile Bougenot was administrator and director of Cail company which entrusted him with the assembly of the Lareinty steam factory in 1860.
The technological evolution of the period led him to be at the centre of the creation and administration of a whole network of central factories by shares, and to promote an era of great industrial revolution for Martinique in particular, by favouring the system of using steam in the technique of sugar production.
This was to be the beginning of a prosperous period for Martinique's factory owners and the accumulation of goods and profits for him, in particular.

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