Allée du Musée,
Villeneuve d’Ascq, France
Manuelle Gautrand
Post By:Kitticoon Poopong
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| Photo © Courtesy of Max Lerouge – LMCU, Vincent Fillon |
The programme for this job was to restructure and extend the Musée d’
Art Moderne of Lille, which stands in a magnificent park at Villeneuve d’Ascq. Designed by
Roland Simounet and inaugurated in 1983, the existing buildings have already acquired historic landmark status.
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| Photo © Courtesy of Max Lerouge – LMCU, Vincent Fillon |
The main aim of the brief was to reconstitute a continuous and fluid museum space, this while adding new galleries in a travelling progression to the existing galleries, to house a superb collection of Art brut works. It also entailed a thorough restructuring of the existing buildings, certain parts of which needed to be redefined.
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| Photo © Courtesy of Max Lerouge – LMCU, Vincent Fillon |
In spite of the heritage monument status of Simounet’s construction, rather than set up at a distance, we immediately opted to seek contact by which the extension would embrace the existing buildings in a supporting movement.
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| Photo © Courtesy of Max Lerouge – LMCU, Vincent Fillon |
I tried to take my cue from Roland Simounet’s architecture, ‘to learn to understand’, so as to be able to develop a project that does not mark aloofness, an attitude that might have been seen as indifference.
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| Photo © Courtesy of Max Lerouge – LMCU, Vincent Fillon |
The architecture of the extension wraps around the north and east sides of the existing arrangement in a fan-splay of long, fluid and organic volumes. On one side, the fan ribs stretch in close folds to shelter a café-restaurant that opens to the central patio; on the other, the ribs are more widely spaced to form the five galleries for the Art brut collection.
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| Photo © Courtesy of Max Lerouge – LMCU, Vincent Fillon |
Our intention was never to compete with Simounet’s design, but to attempt to extend it to achieve our objectives with our own sensitivity. Our project keeps to the same scales in volumes, and uses the same principles to hug the ground line, but we interpret them freely.
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| Photo © Courtesy of Max Lerouge – LMCU, Vincent Fillon |
Thanks to the space available, while working with the programme constraints we were able to create ‘a small world apart’ in the extension. Its outline, which reminds you of a fan or an open hand, enables careful insertion in the contour lines of the site, so the buildings seem to emerge from the topography. (In this respect, Simounet himself was in the habit of talking about ‘staying close to the ground line’).
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| Photo © Courtesy of Max Lerouge – LMCU, Vincent Fillon |
On the café-restaurant side, the close folds of the extension enable us to redefine the patio, to loosen up links from the entrance hall towards the restructured spaces: café-restaurant, bookshop and auditorium. The idea was of course to increase the museum’s floor-space, but also to re-balance its functions and to instil new life into certain areas that had become dysfunctional or ill-used in the course of time.
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| Photo © Courtesy of Max Lerouge – LMCU, Vincent Fillon |
On the other side, the broader folds of the extension house the Art brut galleries. In this part, which is to the east of the existing buildings, all the museum’s galleries are now inter-linked, starting with modern art, passing on to contemporary art, and then on to Art brut, with interspersed theme galleries and temporary show spaces articulated to the others.
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| Photo © Courtesy of Max Lerouge – LMCU, Vincent Fillon |
The Art brut galleries maintain a strong link with the surrounding scenery, but they are also purpose-designed to suit the works that they house: atypical pieces, powerful works that you can’t just glance at in passing. The folds in these galleries make the space less rigid and more organic, so that visitors discover art works in a gradual movement. The architecture is partly introverted, to protect art works that are often fragile and that demand toned down half-light.
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| Photo © Courtesy of Max Lerouge – LMCU, Vincent Fillon |
At the extremity of the folds – meaning the galleries – a large bay opens magnificent views onto the surrounding parkland, adding breathing space to the visit itinerary. These views compensate the half-light in the galleries: the openwork screens in front of the bays mediate with strong light and parkland scenery, a feature that recalls Simounet’s generous arrangements in the galleries that he designed. Envelopes are sober: smooth untreated concrete, with mouldings and openwork screens to protect the bays from too much daylight. The surface concrete has a slight colour tint that varies according to intensity of light.
Description from the Architects:
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| Photo © Courtesy of Max Lerouge – LMCU, Vincent Fillon |
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| plan--drawing © Courtesy of Manuelle Gautrand |
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| 3d view--drawing © Courtesy of Manuelle Gautrand |
Project Data
Project Name: LaM – Lille Museum of Modern, Contemporary and Outsider Art. Refurbishment and extension of the existing modern Art Museum (Roland Simounet, architect)
Location: Allée du Musée, Villeneuve d’Ascq, France
Surface: 11.600 sqm, including the extension: 3.200 sqm - exhibition surface: 4.000 sqm
Global cost: around 30 millions euros inclusive of tax
Design contest: 2002
Studies: 2003-2005
Works: 2006-2009
Museum opening: September 2010
The people
Client / Owner: Lille Métropole Communauté Urbaine
Project manager: Architect, joint Architect in Works phase
Museography: Renaud Pierard
Structures: Khephren
Fluids: Alto
Economist: LTA (studies phase), Guesquière-Dierickx (works phase)
Multimedia: Roger Labeyrie
Fire security: Casso
Refurbishing works of the existing building’s façade and roofing: Etienne Sintive
Landscaper: AWP
Roofing/Finishings: Tommasini
Photographs: Max Lerouge – LMCU, Vincent Fillon
Note>>Location in this map, indicate city/country but not exact address.
