La Nouvelle République has a report today on the Museum of Pre-history at Le Grand Pressigny. This new museum opened on 20th September 2009, although everything wasn't completely ready. In its first few months of opening it has attracted 8500 visitors. At the moment it is closed so that all the work can be finished. It will reopen on Sunday 7th February. For more details tel: 02.47.94.90.20 or on www.musee-prehistoire.fr or www.prehistoiregrandpressigny.fr
Also see an enthusiastic report on the museum here from the very Grand-Pressigny blog.
Also see an enthusiastic report on the museum here from the very Grand-Pressigny blog.
5 comments:
I've looked up their site. Ugh. I don't doubt the collections are impressive, but the new building is a horrible in this setting. I suppose French red tape could prevent me and you to change the paint colour on our doors, but they allow this modern shoebox of a building in a historic surrounding! Pauvre France.
Hervé
Hervé I agree that the new building is not entirely in character with the rest of the château. However, there are some people, Imelda Marcos for example, who are rather fond of shoes.
Jim - seeing it fairly often, ie walking the dog around it twice a day on our holidays, we are getting used to it. I still don't like the new structure from the outside but inside it works really well.
If the idea was to be controversial then it has obviously worked and perhaps it will attract even more visitors to see what the fuss is about.
Thanks Jean. I must get over to GP to visit the Museum sometime.
At least this building is honest about what it is. I would far rather this, where they have used high quality materials and workmanship than some fantasy pastiche. No one knows what most of the original structure looked like, so what was the museum to do? The more I look at it the more I realise the architect was very aware of matching angles where old and new meet, and that the building needed to be massive to hold its own in massive surroundings. The new stone will weather and people will get used to it. The curators have a new purpose built facility for both display and archive so they no longer have to make do with a compromised re-use of an old building or some industrial storage shed.
Post a Comment