Musée de la Romanité

By Francesco Pagliari - 26 April 2018
Duravit, Thorn, Zumtobel Group have participated in the project

The first phase, in 2011, of the international competition for the Musée de la Romanité in Nîmes, southern France, received 103 submissions. The selection process whittled these down to a short list of three projects, with the winner being announced in spring 2012: the architecture practice of Elizabeth de Portzamparc. The subsequent phases saw the definitive project finalized, and the worksite get underway at the end of 2014. The last step, begun in summer 2017, was the installation of the museum collections according to museology concepts promoting “immersion in heritage” and “visitor interaction” in the widest sense. The date scheduled for the grand opening is June 2018. It will bring full circle a long and complex process to realize an architecture whose location and function are laden with significance. The project for a museum exploring the ancient Roman heritage of a place like Nîmes - whose history goes back even beyond the Roman era and whose unique layered urban fabric of architectures from past centuries is an outdoor history lesson - was always going to be a heavily charged undertaking redolent with symbolism. History is everywhere in the center of Nîmes: in the urban fabric as well as the archeological finds and exhibits forming the main collection of the Musée de la Romanité. History is visible and comes alive in the city’s architecture: monuments like the Roman Arena, or Amphitheater, and other vestiges of the past, from a pre-Roman settlement to the ancient Roman walls and the remains of medieval architecture. The huge square Musée de la Romanité dialogues directly with the historic landmarks making up the district’s dense urban fabric, creating significant urban perspectives with its historic neighbors. A highly contemporary structure, it nonetheless complements the Amphitheater across the way. The public walkway coursing through the new building...