Emmanuel Tresmontant - 2006-10-01
In France, tradition dictates that each President of the Republic leaves to posterity a cultural building bearing their stamp.
Thus, Georges Pompidou and the Pompidou Centre (opened in 1977), Valéry Giscard d’Estaing and the Musée d’Orsay (1986), François Mitterrand and the Bibliothèque Nationale (1995) and, recently, Jacques Chirac and the Musée du quai Branly.
Opened to the public on 23rd June, this museum dedicated to the civilisations of Africa, Asia, Oceania and the Americas is intended, in the President’s own words, “to give arts and civilisations that have been ignored or neglected for too long their rightful place”.
A row of multicoloured huts emerging from the forest!
From the outside, the building – located near the Eiffel Tower in one of the most chic districts of Paris – resembles, as its architect Jean Nouvel intended, a “place marked by the symbols of forest and river”, “a unique and strange place” like “a simple shelter, without a façade, standing in a wood”...
Although some people have compared this creation to “a rusty oil tanker stranded on the banks of the Seine”, one is forced to recognise that the complex, despite its audacity, manages to blend in with its surroundings! Indeed, the building’s impressive structure does not exceed 21 m in height. The presence of the exotic garden, and the 26 posts arranged to support the 220-metre-long metal frame, enable the site to “breathe”. Jean Nouvel has also taken pains to use natural materials such as wood. His building is intentionally irregular, with its 30 multicoloured “boxes” emerging from the façade: used as display areas inside the museum, they give volume and harmony to the exterior.
On the Seine side, a glass fence 12 metres high by 200 metres long serves as an enclosure for the museum and follows the curve of the river.
With a 18,000 m2 garden containing thousands of species, and a 800 m2 wall of vegetation covered with 15,000 plants (i.e. 150 species from all over the world), the museum adds an extensive area of vegetation to the heart of Paris.
A kaleidoscope of collections brought together in one place
To enter the museum you have to take a strange 180-metre long sinusoidal ramp, which winds around a glass tower housing musical instruments from Africa and Oceania. Of the 300,000 objects on display sheltered from daylight, the sight of the 70,000 masks, totems, statues and figurines from all over the African continent bring to mind Picasso’s fascination upon visiting the Musée de l’Homme (Museum of Man) in the early 20th century: a feeling of terror when confronted with magical objects designed to avert or capture the dark forces of nature.
Through its collections, the Musée du quai Branly brings us closer to art forms until now often considered by Westerners as simple decorative objects. The reading rooms and library made available to the public are equipped with a multimedia information system, enabling visitors to gain a better understanding of the works, cultures and peoples. You can therefore, for example, try out binocular glasses showing a stereoscopic and panoramic view of two pre-Columbian archaeological sites: Palenque in Mexico and Choque K’Iraw in Peru.
Musée du quai Branly
222 rue de l’Université.
Tel: 01 56 61 70 00
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