The Director of the Cluny Museum, Elisabeth Taburet-Delahaye,
Mayor of the 5the district, Florence Berthout,
Sylvie Hubac, President of the RMN-GP
Madame la présidente de l’Opérateur du patrimoine et des projets immobiliers de la culture, Clarisse Mazoyer,
The Chief Architect of Historic Monuments, Paul Barnoud
Architect, Bernard Desmoulin and his teams,
Ladies and gentlemen, dear friends,
There are some places that remind us of the richness of the history of Paris, the richness of the history of France. Places that form this exceptional heritage, unique in the world, a precious heritage.
The Cluny National Museum, or should I say the thermal baths and the Cluny Hotel, are definitely part of that. In the heart of the Latin Quarter, this private mansion of the 15th century witnessed some great hours of our history or at least some atypical episodes.
After welcoming the abbots of the Order of Cluny in Burgundy, it was ensured that the young Mary of England did not bear children so that her cousin Francis I could accede to the throne.
From the 17th century, the Hotel served as nunciatures to the papal legates and, before the Revolution, it housed the presses of the Queen’s printer.
The State acquired it in 1843 as well as the collection of its last owner, Alexandre Du Sommerard, Chief Adviser to the Court of Auditors, who was passionate about the Middle Ages.
The Museum was born. The buildings were restored. The Hotel was declared a historical monument in 1846.
The museum gradually expanded its collections and its vocation was confirmed in 1992 by its new name of National Museum of the Middle Ages.
This museum, with more than 14,300 pieces (paintings, Romanesque and Gothic sculptures, stone or wood, stained glass, works of goldsmithing and enamelling, tapestries but also everyday objects), houses one of the finest collections dedicated to the Middle Ages in the world.
One of its jewels is of course the fabulous drape of the Lady with the unicorn, exceptional icon, adored by young and old, this set of six tapestries from the beginning of the 16th century representing the five senses and even a sixth, «My only desire», a formula we are still wondering about.
This hanging is not the only reason for the success of the Cluny Museum. They are numerous. First of all the beauty of the site and its location. But also the attraction of visitors for this period of the Middle Ages.
For as the great medievalist Georges Duby once said, “The Middle Ages is a wonderful world, it’s our western.”
The turbulent times we are going through are conducive to the attraction of a trip back in time to get to know history, our shared history.
The Cluny Museum, like others, suffered from the attacks that hit Paris in 2015, with a notable decrease in its attendance.
So I want to assure you of the support of the State to the Museum to financially assume the consequences of enhanced security needs. And we will continue to do so, of course, in the coming months.
I would also like to thank all the museum’s teams for having integrated and assumed this new constraint without compromising the quality of reception of the public.
It is this objective of better welcoming the public that brings us together today.
A museum that can no longer accommodate its visitors in good conditions is a museum that risks the disinterest of visitors. This is all the more true today in the context of an increasingly strong supply and even of competition between establishments.
The challenge here was twofold.
On the one hand the museum suffered from its lack of openness to the city, despite its exceptional location.
On the other hand, it no longer met the requirements of welcoming the public, especially visitors with physical disabilities. The State has engaged with the museum, for the museum, in an unprecedented renovation project, for a real renaissance, mobilizing 25 million euros. First, to create a new reception building. We will be laying the foundation stone in a moment. I am delighted and I want to salute the architect Bernard Desmoulin for the quality of his project.
You have, in the past, put your art at the service of the Museum of Decorative Arts or the Museum of Sarrebourg, or, more recently, the interior and contemporary design of the Grand Commun of the Palace of Versailles.
The Cluny Museum gives you the opportunity of a beautiful realization again. Together with the museum’s teams, you have devised a new reading of the different architectural ensembles that are now connected in a haphazard way, somewhat labyrinthine in your own words. Your project aims at making the collections accessible to everyone, which is currently insufficient, as well as presenting them anew.
Of course, building a new building at the heart of this historic complex is not an insignificant gesture. For my part, I believe that the best way to protect our heritage is to value it by living it and integrating it into our daily lives. Opening this site also gives it a new breath, a new appeal to the public. It gives it a new future.
We will have to wait another year or so to take advantage of this new reception site, the construction of which will be accompanied by a new museum, designed by Bernard Desmoulin and the Gardère studio, which will undertake a real overhaul of the museum’s itineraries.
Three other major projects are underway or just recently completed: the restoration of the Gallo-Roman remains, the exterior and interior restoration of the chapel – which I have just visited with the chief architect of historical monuments, Paul Barnoud - as well as the roof restoration of the building built by Paul Boeswillwald at the end of the 19th century to connect the medieval hotel to the ancient baths.
These major real estate projects, which you have grouped under the name «Cluny IV», will obviously help change the face of the Cluny Museum.
The Museum will open physically as it already is deeply in his mind. I am thinking of the active policy of loans and exhibitions outside the walls. In 2016, we were able to find his collections in Loche but also in Seoul or Prague.
The Cluny Museum is strongly involved in the «Louvre Abou Dabi» project where it will bring most of the representation of Western medieval art.
I was in Abu Dhabi a little over a month ago for the International Conference on the Protection of Endangered Heritage requested by the President of the Republic. I had the chance to visit the Louvre with its architect, Jean Nouvel. The Louvre Abou Dabi will be a magnificent setting for the works of the Cluny Museum within a universal museum.
It is in the same spirit of the circulation of works and knowledge that the Cluny Museum is a founding member of the European network of medieval art museums.
The Palazzo Madama in Turin is currently hosting the exhibition presented here last spring, Les émaux de Limoges à décor profane. Around the collections of Cardinal Guala Bicchieri.”
This exhibition was a great success, as was the one to which it gave way, “Merovingian times. Three centuries of art and culture in Frankish Gaul». It is an exciting exhibition that allows a scientific and thoughtful reading of our relationship with these ancestors.
In closing, I would like to say that I am particularly pleased to be here at a time when we are completing the great reflection on the museum of the 21st century that I launched last May.
Last November, I gathered at the Ministry of Culture all the heads of national museums. You were there, Madam Director.
In a few words, it is a matter of redefining the museum’s place at the heart of society, of rethinking its relationship with the population, its civic role, its function and its functioning.
This is a great ambition. I am delighted that the Cluny Museum is fully involved.
I want to conclude by saluting all the teams of the museum, who each in their place and in their skills, allow to be studied, valued and shared an exceptional heritage, producer of meaning and federator, cementing our society and allowing it to look to the future.
It is this exceptional work that the State accompanies and supports in this major project.
Thank you.