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11/12/2012

The new Louvre Lens

Louvre Lens, Lens

In 2003, Jean-Jacques Aillagon, the then Minister for Culture and Communication, and Henri Loyrette, president of the Musée du Louvre, announced plans to create a regional branch of the Louvre. The president of the Nord-Pas de Calais region Daniel Percheron rapidly voiced his great interest in the project and undertook to provide solid support.
Following the announcement, five towns and cities in the region, along with Amiens, capital of the neighbouring Picardy region, put together proposals to host the new museum. Following visits to the six proposed sites, particularly by the then Culture Minister Renaud Donnedieu de Vabres, the city of Lens was put forward to Jean-Pierre Raffarin, the then Prime Minister, who announced Lens as the winner on a visit to the city on November 29, 2004.
Lens offered the best site

The city of Lens offered a site of over 20 hectares in a former mine yard, closed in 1960. The site was ideal for the construction of a contemporary museum building with no constraints on design, as the Musée du Louvre wished. Its proximity to the train station, the absence of geotechnical issues, the esthetic quality of the landscape, and its location in the heart of a dense urban agglomeration were all key qualities that meant the site received an excellent technical report.
An ideal location

Lens was also the perfect site from a geographical point of view. It lies in an ideal position between Lille and Arras, the two regional capitals. The city is at the junction of the A26 freeway from Calais to Rheims, popular with British motorists, and the A1 freeway from Paris to Lille, popular with Belgian and Dutch motorists. Lens is just two hours by car from Paris, 1.5 hours from Brussels, 45 minutes from Calais, and 30 minutes from Lille. Nearly 13 million people live within two hours' drive from Lens.
The city is also on a TGV line, putting it just 1 hour 10 minutes from Paris by high-speed train. TGV links take travelers on to Lille, and from there to Brussels and London.
Local support proves decisive

The people of Lens lent wholehearted support to the campaign, led by the mayor Guy Delcourt and the president of the Lens-Liévin urban area Michel Vancaille.
A local support committee was created and local inhabitants were invited to come and add their signatures to the campaign at the city hall. All in all, over 8,000 local people signed the book of support! During a visit to Lens, the Culture Minister was impressed by the vigor of the local campaign to bring the Louvre to the city as a symbol of pride and cultural renewal.
A symbolic choice

The decision to build the new museum in the former mine yard for the 9 and 9 bis shafts is highly symbolic. It is a way for the French Nation to express its gratitude to this corner of France that has suffered much in the past, both from war and from intensive coal-mining, followed by the closing of the last pit in Lens in 1986. Today, economic and social conditions remain difficult in the region, with a higher-than-average unemployment rate of 15%.
Following the example of the Tate in Liverpool and the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, the Louvre-Lens aims to play a part in local regeneration, helping to modernize the region's image.
A project for urban renewal

The local authorities have fully seized the project's potential and aim to make the Louvre-Lens a key to future economic development.
The planned Musée du Louvre-Lens has been awarded Metropolitan Project status within the metropolitan district of Lille, which groups 23 municipalities and partners representing a population of over 3.5 million inhabitants. Mission Bassin Minier, a planning agency specializing in former mining regions, has been charged with producing an urban planning study to ensure ease of accessibility to the new museum and its successful integration into the urban fabric. Lens city council is actively supporting the project, announcing in 2007 major plans to renovate the area around the train stations, following recent improvements to the boulevard Basly, the main thoroughfare through the city center.

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The choice of contemporary architecture

From the outset, the Louvre and the Nord-Pas de Calais region, contractor for the project, were set on a contemporary design. It was a real challenge to design a new building for the Louvre, which represented the Parisian museum without simply imitating it and which fitted the site - a former mine yard - without betraying its character.

In early 2005, the Nord-Pas de Calais region, contractor and chief financial backer for the project, launched an international competition which attracted more than 120 entries from both France and elsewhere.

The winners were the Japanese agency Sanaa (Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa), in association with the American museum architects Imrey/Culbert (Celia Imrey and Tim Culbert) and the French landscape designer Catherine Mosbach, with a resolutely contemporary design. In March 2009 the Studio Adrien Gardère was commissioned by Sanaa to design the galleries and exhibition spaces.
An internationally renowned team working in France for the first time

Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa founded Sanaa (Sejima And Nishizawa And Associates) in 1995.

In 2000, Sanaa won the competition to design the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art in Kanazawa. In 2006, they completed the Glass Pavilion, an extension of the museum of the city of Toledo in the United States.

Alongside the Musée du Louvre-Lens project, they are currently working on numerous projects in Japan, Switzerland, Germany, France, and Spain.

In 2010 Sanaa was awarded the Pritzker Architecture Prize (one of the world's most prestigious architecture prizes).
A sensitive, airy, and fluid design

The chosen design is a model of easily accessible architecture, close to the land, sensitive to its beauty and fragility, and open to nature.

The five main buildings are thus positioned on the site like boats on a river that have delicately floated into a huddle.

The grounds are planned as an integral part of the architectural project. They show the buildings to their best advantage, while the buildings in turn display the grounds through a play of reflections and mirrors on the outer walls. The grounds combine several areas for visitors to discover - a formal garden in front of the museum, clearings and walks through and round the edge of the grounds, natural forest groves in the western part and gardens forming a counterpoint to the woodlands.

The grounds provide access from the city to the museum and are open to the local population for walks and visits.

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The Louvre-Lens, an opportunity for Lens... and for the Louvre

It has often been said that the Louvre-Lens is a great opportunity for Lens and the Nord-Pas de Calais region. It is also a great opportunity for the Louvre to rethink both its role and its collections – an opportunity to experiment with options that cannot be tested within the structure and organization of the Parisian palace, and to test its social and educational role in a new environment.

The collections will therefore be presented in temporary, cross-disciplinary exhibitions uniting artworks that are displayed according to department, school, and technique in the Paris museum. The new museum will also be fully on view. Its storerooms will be visible and visitable, museum professions will be demonstrated, and visitors will gain insight into the "secret life" of the artworks.

In short, the Louvre-Lens will be a museum of the 21st century, a versatile and many-faceted museum with a social, artistic, and educational role.
A tool for art appreciation and education

Art appreciation and education will be a priority for the Louvre-Lens. The museum project will focus on the education of perception and the apprehension of art, taking into account the expectations of today's visitors, many of whom are totally unfamiliar with museum practices.

Hence the significance of the education program that has been developed since the outset of the Louvre-Lens project, using various means (identifying labels, information panels, interactive terminals, screenings, etc.). The new information and communication technologies will be widely used to present the works.
A museum to which visitors will return time and time again

The Louvre-Lens will endeavor to fit into the local context - there could be nothing worse than a facility from which the people of Lens and its region would feel excluded. This is why it is hoped that the Louvre-Lens will not only attract visitors, but keep them coming back.

The prime visitors to the Louvre-Lens will be the people who live in the mining basin. A strategy is currently underway to integrate the museum into the local fabric and encourage the inhabitants to make it their own. Another key policy of the future museum will be its provision for school groups.
A cultural pole in the service of its region

The Nord-Pas de Calais region abounds in often renowned cultural facilities and museums which form a densely structured regional network. The Louvre-Lens will work in close collaboration with these establishments - the momentum created by the new museum must be of benefit to the whole community.

On show:
Le Temps à l'oeuvre
Ranaissance - Revolutions dans les arts en Europe 1400-1530
La galerie Du Temps - Un parcours inédit à travers l'histoire du temps.

National and International Press
Claudine Colin Communication 28 rue de Sévigné – 75004 Paris France Tél : +33 (0)1 42 726001
Diane Junqua diane@claudinecolin.com

Musée du Louvre-Lens
Raphaël Wolff Tél : +33 (0)3 21186211 raphael.wolff@louvrelens.fr

Musée du Louvre
Anne-Laure Beatrix Tél : +33 (0)1 40205110 anne-laure.beatrix@louvre.fr

Louvre Lens
rue Paul Bert - Lens
Full rate: 15 euro

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