MUMA - MUSÉE D'ART MODERNE ANDRÉ-MALRAUX

"There’s no house like this in the world, not even in Brazil, Russia or the United States. Remember, people of Le Havre, that this is where it all began." These were the words of André Malraux, then Minister of State for Cultural Affairs, in his inaugural speech on June 24, 1961. For when this museum opened its doors, facing the sea and close to the port, it symbolized a turning point in the conception of access to culture in France.

After the Second World War, in the midst of reconstruction, the project began in 1952, on the initiative of Georges Salles, then Director of the Musées de France, and Reynold Arnould, a painter from Le Havre who had become the city’s museum curator. The idea was not only to provide a setting for the collections following the destruction of the Musée des Beaux-Arts in 1944, but also to carry out a fundamental rethinking of the museum’s function. Breaking with its traditional model, they set about modernizing it by introducing lectures, film screenings and concerts, and inventing a new multi-faceted museum space: exhibition spaces, workshops, storerooms, cafeteria, library... to attract all kinds of audiences and contribute to art education. This project, the most modern in Europe, was entrusted to a dissident architect from Auguste Perret’s studio, Guy Lagneau. His tastes ran to lighter, more ethereal constructions than those of the champion of Reconstruction. The building he has designed here is a clear expression of this. Its bay windows opening onto the horizon may seem daring for a building containing canvases that need to be protected from the light, but on the contrary, the whole is invigorated by daylight, without detracting from the works. Today, the MuMa is the second largest collection of Impressionist works in France, after the Musée d’Orsay in Paris. It is the result of gifts from artists such as Claude Monet, or bequests such as that of Eugène Boudin’s brother, who was very attached to Le Havre, as well as private collections that have enriched its holdings over time. The great painters of Le Havre, such as Raoul Dufy and Émile Othon-Friesz, also have their place here. Outside, Le Signal, a monumental work by Henri-Georges Adam, is part of the collections. With a span of 22 meters and a weight of 220 tons, it is made of concrete and aluminum. It was designed to "link the architecture of the museum with the maritime elements of the site."