PARIS (dpa) – From outside, the proposed new museum for contemporary art looks like a passenger steamer. Eventually it will be as big as the Parisian “culture machine”, the Centre Georges Pompidou.
The new museum is out of the project stage and has now taken on a concrete shape.
The expanse of this new museum will be over three floors and it will house some of the most beautiful and valuable works of art from the second half of the 20th century.
French businessman Francois Pinault laid the foundation stone to this huge project. Pinault who took over British auctioneer Christies in 1998 wants to transform his foundation into France’s largest private museum.
Construction costs of the new museum are estimated at 152 million euro (133 million dollars) and are to be footed by Pinault himself.
The exhibition area of the new cultural temple should be twice the size of the Centre Pompidou and it is scheduled to open at the end of 2006.
Located on the Ile-Seguin, an island in the river Seine in west Paris at the centre of a deserted industrial site, its former inhabitant happens to be none other than French automobile giant Renault.
This huge project was given the go ahead by the French Minister of Culture and the city of Boulogne-Billancourt, who own the 11.5 hectare island, a year ago.
Recently Pinault, who controls the department store chains Le Printemps, La Redoute und FNAC, chose an architect for his future museum.
The winner of the international competition is Tadao Ando from Japan. Other competitors in the race for this huge project were stars such as Rem Koolhaas from the Netherlands and Dominique Perrault, the designer of the French national library.
“The museum is a maritime space station,” said Tadao Ando, renowned winner of several architecture prizes, about his draft. The dimensions of the museum are 300 metres in length, 130 metres in width, 28 metres high. It will be very transparent.
“Concrete and glass are the main materials. In its entirety, it will reflect the river and vice versa. A beautiful illumination lit up in the evening will resemble a festive holiday steamer,” explains the 60 year-old Osaka born architect.
The future museum is asymmetrically shaped, more classic and simple. Its long shape resembles a passenger steamer – like the host island that has been uninhabited since 1992 and was known as the “labour steamer” when the Renault factory halls were still in use.
“Instead of labourers, art lovers now flock to the island which is 100 per cent in private hands. A rather paradoxical fate for a place which used to be the scene of major labour conflicts”, writes the French daily Figaro.
The museum will have more than 7,000 square metres available for exhibitions and 15,000 square metres for a reference library – already an issue of much speculation in the French press. “How valuable is this tough-as-nails businessman’s collection”? asked the French economic newspaper Les Echos.
The Breton whose fortune is estimated at 4.8 billion euros (4.2 billon dollars) has figured in the art world for a long time. In January 1999, he financed a retrospective by the American painter Mark Rothko at the Museum of Modern Art in Paris. And Pierre Daix, one of France’s most renowned art historians, dedicated an extensive book to the art fan and his collection.
Pinault’s collection includes paintings for which he had to dig deep into his pockets at auctions. In 1990, he became the proud owner of a painting by the Dutch painter Piet Mondrian for 8 million dollars in New York, and in 1995 “Rebus” by Robert Rauschenberg followed for 7 million dollars.
The billionaire made headlines again in 1999 by purchasing a sculpture entitled “Small fourteen-year-old dancer” by Edgar Degas for the new highest record bid of 12.3 million U.S. dollars.
