FRANCE: Paris design museum set to reopen after face-lift

One of France's most lavish museum restorations, the 35 million Euro (44.4 million U.S. dollars) overhaul of the Musee des Arts Decoratifs, comes to fruition on Friday (September 15) when the Paris collection reopens after a decade of work. Housed in a wing of the vast Louvre complex since 1905, the museum of decorative arts and design has about 150,000 objects ranging from a reconstructed 15th century bedchamber to works by contemporary designer Philippe Starck. "Today, we want to reopen the Decorative Museum of Arts to the public after 10 years of being closed and after a large building site of renovation which allowed us to find this extraordinary building which is also a part from the Louvre Palace," said Beatrice Salmon, the director of the museum. "At the same time we also undertook a large building site of the restoration of the collections, which allowed us today to propose a vast history of decorative arts from the middle ages and today." The collection, based mainly on gifts from private donors, reflects the generally opulent style in furnishing and decoration of France's aristocracy and high bourgeoisie from the Middle Ages to the present day. The design by TDA, Bruno Moinard, Sylvie Jodar and Antoine Plazanet form chronological exhibition spaces, which are soberly contemporary. Circulation within these spaces was designed to break the building's natural architectural lines by varying the entrances and creating surprises and events to sustain the visitor's attention. The architects played on a multiplicity of possible views, either looking out over one of Paris's most beautiful sites, or by creating escape views within the building. "We worked on the light and the positioning of rooms while preserving the openings to the outside, to the city . I mean to the side of Rivoli street , and the other sides of The Louvre and the Tuileries Garden," said the architect Bruno Moinard. The original stone walls and parquet floors reinforce the space's former identity, while the design of the display cases is deliberately discreet and wherever possible integrated into the architecture itself. After falling into dusty neglect, during which its future was uncertain, the museum was reborn with the help of Helene David-Weill, the wife of one of France's most influential bankers and a leading patron of the arts. The cathedral-like main hall, opened up and restored to its original lightness looking out over the Tuileries gardens, forms the spine of the museum, which is organised along both chronological and thematic lines. Besides celebrating the skills of France's furniture makers, jewellers and craftsmen, the displays provide snapshots of French decorative taste, although the emphasis is on the rare and costly rather than the everyday. The stiff elegance of the 18th century shifts to the First Empire with its echoes of ancient Greece and Rome, passing through heavy 19th century styles to the lavish designs of the Art Deco period. The 1920s apartment of the fashion designer Jeanne Lanvin, restored in all its sombre luxury, contrasts with the lively decorations from a bedroom in the home of William Hope, a prominent banker from the 19th century. Different rooms inside every stage in the museum are named for the years they represent, such as Room 1900 and Room 2000. To avoid smothering the visitor with the huge size of the collection, only about 6,000 objects, a fraction of the total, will be on display at a time, with the emphasis on individual pieces or particular trends.

ITN Source | September 14, 2006

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