Motley Harmony

The newly reopened Musée d’arts de Nantes, one of France’s great art institutions, unites four centuries of architectural styles.

- George Kafka

“The first thing we did was take the gate away,” says architect Patrick Richard, standing on the Brittany-granite parvis at the entrance to the freshly renovated Musée d’arts de Nantes. With this one move, he and his firm Stanton Williams, which was behind the lengthy renovation, dispelled the institution’s long-standing elitist associations. In place of the gate, they erected deep steps for pedestrians to hang out on and survey passersby on the parquet patterned Rue Georges Clemenceau. “For us the public space doesn’t stop at the door,” says Richard.

“It goes right into the inside.” It was a bold initial step in a very complex project, the first major international work for the London-based firm. Upgrading the giant complex was a $55 million endeavor comprising everything from street-level urban landscaping and surgical interior adaptations to the construction of a necessarily discreet white-box extension.