Musée du quai Branly Paris, Jean Nouvel Building, Architect, MQB France Design Images

Musée du quai Branly Architecture

Quai Branly Museum building, Paris design by Ateliers Jean Nouvel, France

20 Oct 2011

Quai Branly Museum

Date built: 2006

Architect: Ateliers Jean Nouvel

Location: south bank of River Seine, close to Eiffel Tower, just southwest of Paris centre, France

Focused on indigenous art, cultures and civilizations

Musée du quai Branly Paris

16 photographs © Adrian Welch, taken on 20 – 23 Oct 2011

Address:
Musée du quai Branly
37 Quai Branly
75007 Paris, France

Contact:
01 56 61 70 00

Admission:
€8.50; €6 reductions; free under-18s. Temporary exhibitions €7; €5 reductions.
Please check with operators.

Musée du quai Branly

Museum focus: Indigenous art, cultures and civilizations from Africa, Asia, Oceania, and the Americas.

28 photos © Rebecca Breun added 13 Jun 2011

The Quai Branly Museum combines collections of the Musée des Arts d’Afrique et d’Océanie and the Laboratoire d’Ethnologie du Musée de l’Homme, plus contemporary indigenous art.

Admin Building:

The building opened on June 23, 2006, and is designed by world-famous french architect Jean Nouvel.

A commission was established to study the feasibility of building this Parisian museum in 1995.

Ticket window and path towards entrance:

Designed by Jean Nouvel, the building resembles a long footbridge, partly covered with wood, and stretching into the trees. Hidden from view by thick vegetation, protected from the noise of the quays by a glass palisade.

The museum only gradually reveals itself, and the visitor becomes an explorer. To reach it you cross an undulating garden designed to create an impression of remote, untamed greenery. The building is perched on piles, all is curved, fluid, transparent, mysterious and, above all, warmly receptive. The architectural ensemble takes in five levels, crowned by a wide terrace with fine views of the Eiffel Tower and Paris.

Inside, glass walls replace the traditional understanding of windows, their transparency and the natural background is afforded by the trees and offer no distraction from the artefacts themselves. Suspended ‘boxes’, clearly visible from the outside and displaying works of similar origin, enable the visitor to gain further knowledge of people and culture.

Apart from the areas devoted to permanent exhibition and the more flexible ones reserved for international exhibitions, the building also houses major reserve collections open to researchers, lecture rooms and classrooms, and a theatre which, during the summer, opens into the ‘open-air amphitheatre in the garden.