Quai Branly in Process

Abstract

Viewed from the Seine, through its glass palisade, the museum looks like a capsized container ship ... in dry dock. Hoisted on pillars, the exhibition plateau seems exposed and incongruous. Red, gray, yellow windowless boxes protrude. Seen from the rue de l'Universite, on the opposite side, the long, scored body seems already to be rusting. Three smaller buildings are yoked to one end; a domed restaurant perches on top. Underneath, a garden, or rather, a forest, is taking root. The trees are small, anchored by stakes and wires, accompanied by thousands of seedlings and grasses whose irrigation tubes and valves haven't yet been made to vanish. When the surrounding forest has grown up, the museum will, according to its architect, mysteriously dematerialize. The colored boxes will be glimpsed as if they were native huts poking through jungle foliage. Time will tell how the Musee du Quai Branly eventually looks and how its ambitious program is realized. Opened to great fanfare and widespread grumbling, it is a work in process dynamic, pretentious, and raw. As of fall 2006, the central exhibition space is largely complete (though like all permanent displays it will certainly be revised as tastes and times change). An impressive array of public events and research resources has been projected, and a first round of temporary exhibitions is under way. The guiding priorities and style of the new project are becoming clear, as are some of its contradictions and tensions.1 Quai Branly is clearly more than one thing, a coalition of different agendas that will, no doubt, be renegotiated. The founding vision and dramatic architecture create possibilities and impose limits. It will be interesting to track how those who animate this project curators, anthropologists, historians, bureaucrats, technicians,