Musée du Quai Branly (Museum on Branly Quay)
This is a really interesting museum on two fronts: architecturally and culturally/historically. It’s a new museum on the Paris scene, which opened in June 2006, housed in a very mod building designed by Jean Nouvel on a prime riverside site. Behind are rows of up-market Parisian apartment blocks with the Eiffel Tower as backdrop. Nouvel’s creation is an unusual mix of visual metaphors: a bridge museum between Europe (not represented) and the other 4 continents represented; a river; a snake; a tropical jungle within an urban one.
The glass wall at the Debilly Gate, reflecting the quai and the traffic, leads to the large landscaped garden below the red buildings designed like curving bridges. The red ‘bridges’ have protruding boxes that are small rooms. Ticket office and reception area are in a circular white building like a spiral shell, and inside a ramp does spiral up to the exhibits (wheelchair accessible). Inside, windows on the quai side are painted with garden scenes, giving a very soft, pretty effect. On the other side the windows have a sort-of ‘chain mail’ curtain. The exhibition area has a very open design, with one area flowing into another, divided by low walls, and overlooked by 3 mezzanine levels. Small, special exhibits are in square, box-like rooms that protrude out beyond the walls. One such is devoted to glorious Ethiopian wall frescoes from Gondar.
It’s an amazing collection of art and artifacts relating to non-European cultures, bringing together the collections of the Musée des Arts d’Afrique et d’Océanie, and the Laboratoire d’Ethnologie du Musée de l’Homme. The museum’s tagline is “where cultures talk” (ou dialoguent les cultures), and this is achieved with a dazzling display of 3,500 objects, video and multimedia installations, music, and a special tactile area called La Rivière. Some of the many informational boards are in English. We see masks, statues, jewelry, cloths and clothing, musical instruments, swords, seats, stone pillows, cups, for example, intricately carved with amazing details, beautiful beadwork and painting, all helping to give a broader understanding of those cultures. The items are grouped thematically within each culture, which we found to be a good method of helping the visitors take in the information, but it’s still too much to absorb in one visit. It might be a good idea to use the audio-guides, which focus on objects that the museum considers important or representative of some point.
There is a (busy) café in the garden below but your ticket allows one re-entry, so it’s easy to find a café nearby for lunch.
The shop (‘Librairie’) has many books and CDs. The auditorium has a full program of theater, music and dance, and families and children can enjoy special programs.
This museum is well worth a visit. There were long lines the day we were there, so it’s obviously already popular.
