Museums Journal interviews director of The Musée national de la Marine on the recent redevelopment:

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"The Musée national de la Marine in Paris closed its doors to the public all the way back in 2017 to undergo a major renovation.

Reopened in 2023, the museum is based in the extraordinary art deco building – originally built for the 1878 World's Fair, the Palais du Trocadéro was designed by the architect Davioud, but was was transformed by architects Carlu, Boileau and Azéma for the 1937 World's Fair of Arts and Techniques Applied to Modern Life – of the Palais de Chaillot, an enormous two-part structure of two curvilinear wings, one that holds the the Cité de l'Architecture et du Patrimoine, dedicated to the history of architecture and monumental sculpture, and the other houses the Musée National de la Marine. The Eiffel Tower completes this masterful tripartite complex.

So, with the “starchitecture” of years gone past providing the museum’s situation and shell, how fitting it is that the museum employed the internationally-renowned Norwegian architectural practice Snøhetta to work on the six-year long renovation, working alongside the French architectural practice h2o, which is known for its sophisticated approach to renovating heritage buildings.

The museum recruited the exhibition design company Casson Mann as the icing on the cake and the results are spectacular.

Tracing over 250 years of French maritime and naval history, the museum’s massive collection takes in nearly 40,000 items, including 7,000 paintings and drawings, 5,000 photographs, and 3,000 models and replicas, not to mention the 40,000 documents and maps it holds too.

Museums Journal spoke to Thierry Gausseron, the director of the Musée National de la Marine, about the scope and aspirations of the redevelopment.

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How has it been since the museum’s reopening?

Thierry Gausseron: The first year was extremely rich. After six and a half years of closure and a complete transformation of the spaces and the layout, we were eager to unveil the new museum and receive feedback from visitors.

These have been very positive: those who knew and appreciated the old museum are very happy to see our iconic works in a whole new light. We receive many families, very young children with their parents or grandparents, the intergenerational bond is very strong.

We have also observed that the duration of their visits is longer than we expected, around one hour and 45 minutes, so visitors really take their time with the works that they can study up close. We are also surprised to see that all generations are embracing the playful digital devices, which we thought were more the domain of younger visitors.

The first year after opening also allowed us to test guided tours, animated sessions, workshops, group receptions and school visits so that we could readjust some offerings to better meet the expectations of all audiences and their specific needs.

How would you describe the design of the exhibition route?

The journey is conceived as a sea voyage, with four “Stops” and three “Crossings”. The stops house the museum's flagship objects and the treasures of the collection, while the crossings highlight three themes related to maritime issues of yesterday, today, and tomorrow.

The journey begins with a stop at the heart of the museum's iconic pieces: the scale models of boats, whose various uses are explained here. It continues with a journey through the routes of consumption and maritime economies, showcasing fishing, offshore energy, cargo transport, passenger transport, and finally leisure boating and water sports. A second stop highlights navigation tools and their evolution, from the first ocean maps to the Galileo satellite.

The visitor then approaches the sea in a more sensitive manner in a section titled Storms and Shipwrecks, where they discover representations of these themes in the arts, the legendary shipwreck of Lapérouse, the solidarity of seafarers, and even underwater archaeology.

The journey continues with two stops: the first presents the rich repertoire of naval sculpture (figureheads, sculpted decorations) and its aesthetic, technical, and political uses; the second showcases a series of large-format paintings, the Views of the Ports of France, created by Joseph Vernet on commission from Louis XV.

The visit concludes with a final section dedicated to the naval power of France through the development of the war navy from the 17th century to the present day. What is the most innovative aspect of museum’s design? The Casson Mann agency implemented a scenography that enhances the sober and elegant spaces created following the architectural renovation by the Franco-Norwegian collaboration between the architectural agencies h2o and Snøhetta.

Rather than partitioning the different rooms of the tour with walls, Casson Mann proposed to maintain the spatial volume of the main gallery and punctuate it with large-scale sculptural installations – a boat hull, containers, a wave – in order to provide reference points for visitors and changes in scale that provoke surprise and emotion.

The other strong point seems to be the balance achieved between digital interactives and the artworks themselves, the result being a lively and animated museum that does not overlook its original DNA made up of ancient models and historical paintings.

What are the highlights of the collection?

Among the must-see works and objects in the museum, I have to mention: the Royal Louis, one of the most imposing ship models in the collection at over five metres long; the decor of the great galleon Réale, a set of sculpted and finely gilded elements that adorned Louis XIV's galley, and whose ensemble is an allegory to the glory of the Sun King; the Views of the Ports of France by Joseph Vernet, an exceptional series of 13 large-format paintings commissioned by Louis XV, celebrating the magnificence of the main ports of France and testifying to the bustling activity of the coastline in the second half of the 18th century.

Do you have a favorite object or story from the museum?

The Fire of the Kent, 1825, an immense canvas painted by Théodore Gudin at the age of 26, is sublimely showcased in the middle of the exhibition. Gudin, a former student of the Naval School and once an officer in the American Navy, was the first painter of the Royal Navy appointed by King Louis Philippe, who commissioned him to paint around a hundred naval battles for his Museum of the History of France in Versailles.

The painting depicts a fire aboard a ship of the English East India Company, where all the elements of maritime tragedy are brilliantly illustrated. The meticulous depiction of the ship is due to Gudin's extensive maritime knowledge and the use of ship models as references. The power and dimensions of this work undeniably evoke emotion in visitors, regardless of their age.

What do you look forward to the most in the temporary exhibitions program?

One of the key challenges of the renovation was to create a large exhibition space (just under 1000 sq m) that was easily adaptable as well as integrated into the heart of the permanent exhibition. Two temporary exhibitions are presented each year, allowing for an in-depth exploration of the multiple facets of human adventure at sea. This year we are showing the work of the photographer Jean Gaumy, and in 2026 we will explore Magellan's voyage around the world.

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Read the interview here.

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