L’Hotel de La Marine, Paris
Just in the heart of Paris at the Place de la Concorde, the Hotel de la Marine has opened its doors. It is an invitation for a public of many interests to visit the restored eighteenth-century building, travel through time and ages in an immersive experience.
Hotel de la Marine, Façade, 2021. Photo Courtesy: Giorgianna Lane.
The Hotel de la Marine has served as a space for different institutions since it ́s construction until today. It was commissioned in 1753 by the French King Louis XV, also known as “Le Bien Aimé”, along with the Place de la Concorde, and other buildings and façades as he was very passionate about urbanism and architecture. The major architect of this project was Ange-Jacques Gabriel.
The function of the Hotel de la Marine during Louis XV reign was as a “garde-meuble royal” or furniture storage facility, for his majesty. It ’s objective was to store and manage the Royal furniture collection.
Just twelve years before the French Revolution took place in 1777 the Hotel “garde-meuble” became the first museum of Décorative Arts. Finally, after the turmoil that followed, the Ministry of the Marine took over, transforming this building into its General Quarters. In 2015, the Marines moved to the south of Paris, and the renovation work started then the result of which is the museum as we know it today.
This project of innovation and renovation is known as the Royale Project. Headed and created by the entrepreneur Alexandre Allard and the ex-cultural minister Renauld Donnedieu de Vabres with an initial cost of circa 130 million euros with the aim of generating a mixture between a five-star hotel and art workshops. Therefore, “La Royale Project” covered four main fields: a library, a boutique, a restaurant, and the art museum. It was the “Centre des Monuments Nationaux”, who commissioned and entrusted this whole project to Delphine Christophe its current administrator being Jocelyn Bouraly. This team is heading this magnificent institution.
Côtémaison, La Royale, 2011. Photo Courtesy: Côtémaison.
With one’s headphones on, one starts the tour. The sensorial experience follows on from the “antichambre du cabinet de travail de Thierry de Ville-d´Avray” to the “Galerie des Ports de guerre”. Each visitor learns about how the Hotel de la Marine used to be a Palace full of life, as the headphones describe the function of every different room, as well as the origin of some of the furniture in each of them.
One of the rooms that stands out the most is the “Salle à manger” (dining room), where you can get totally immersed in the “dejeuner” (meal) of Louis XV, hearing comments on the sophisticated delicacies that were served: from oysters to foie gras.
Visitors can see how this sensorial immersion and engaging experience can be easily used as an example of the emerging concept of the experience economy, reflecting how outdated the concept of traditional museums is in these modern days. The objective was to make a sensorial immersion experience that makes you travel in time and link your senses.
Ambroize Tezenas, the Former Royal Garde Meuble, 2021. Photo Courtesy: Ambroize Tezenas, CMN.
The real intention was to decorate the space the closest to what it used to look at that time, recreating the atmosphere of the actual rooms of Pierre-Élisabeth de Fontanieu and Marc-Antoine Thierry de Ville d´Avray and their respective wives, with their original furniture and decorative arts.
“Un batiment est comme un visage” (a building is like a face), as Joseph Achkar, who has been responsible for the operations in the “Je veux aider” (I want to aid) project of the Government of France, explained. In this case, the Hotel de la Marine Museum and its rooms must express and connect with the visitors as a real human being would. The purpose of the project was to make the experience personal for each visitor.
According to Delphine Christophe, many of the furniture and elements of decorative arts come from various museums in Paris, like the Musée des Arts Decoratifs, le Musée Louvre, la Manufacture de Sevres, Versailles, etc. An exquisite and dedicated effort was made to gather these. Special attention should be devoted to close details of the bureau created for Louis XV for his interior cabinet. This piece can be considered extremely special and prestigious, a piece that also lasted many years in Versailles.
Beaux Arts, Louis XV Bureau, 2021. Photo Courtesy: Beaux Arts & Cie.
Looking back over the sensorial immersion created with the headphones, visitors must pay special attention to the interactive table that waits for every visitor at the end of the visit. This interactive table that the Centre des Monuments Nationales and the Royale Project managed to create could be considered as one of the best technological products invented for curatorial projects and exhibitions.
The table is connected to the headphones, and with the simple contact of your fingertips, you can have access to an immeasurable amount of knowledge about the enigmatic and distinguished personalities about members and collaborators of La Marine Française, during the French Empire. An example of this is the history of Jeanne Baret, a botanist woman that presented herself as a woman during an expedition to Haiti, and other places, who discovered the beautiful flower known as Bougainvillea.
Getty Images. Jeane Baret, 2014. Photo Courtesy: Getty Images.
At the end of the visit, every visitor is invited to enjoy the views of “La Place de la Concorde” in the Hotel’s terrace. Although you can also enjoy the views from inside, the members of the staff working in every room invite you to visit the terrace and admire the beautiful architectural elements used to decorate this terrace or balcony.
Ambroize Tezenas, Loggia, 2021. Courtesy of Ambroize Tezenas, CMN.
During the visit, it could be remarkably noted how admirably every staff member was delighted to explain the history of the building and its rooms. It was easy to tell that they were extremely proud of the museum and curatorial project.
Beaux Arts, Interactive Table, 2021. Photo Courtesy: Beaux Arts & Cie.
The Hotel de la Marine is a must-see for anyone visiting or living in Paris. The passion and dedication that the French State devoted to this project deserves every visitor’s discovery of it. It can be gathered as a perspective-changing experience about the general concept of museum displays and curation, which allows visitors to learn and see the history of France in a new light.
Bibliography:
Pommereau, Claude, ed. “Hôtel de La Marine.” Beaux Arts & Cie, June 2021.
Carmen Ruiz de Linares Camacho
Reviews Co-Editor, MADE IN BED