Musée de la Romanité

Project: Musée de la Romanité, 2018
Client: City of Nîmes
Architect: 2Portzamparc – Elizabeth and Christian de Portzamparc
Design Architect: Elizabeth de Portzamparc
Museography: EDP et Associés (Designer: Elizabeth de Portzamparc)
Project Managers: Alexandre Belle (Director of the museographic project), Aldo Ancieta (Director of the building project), Sarah Coriat (Building Project Manager)
Architect of the Historic Buildings: Alain-Charles Perrot
Associate Architects: A+ Architecture, Gilles Gal (Associated Architect), Julie Couderc (construction manager)
Landscape Architecture: Méristème - Régis Guignard
Economist: L’Echo
Clerk of Works: Arteba
HQE: Celsius Environnement
Structure: Sarl André Verdier
Façade: RFR
Fluids: Louis Choulet
Lighting: Lightec and Stéphanie Daniel
Acoustics: Gamba Acoustique
Multimedia: Mardi 8
Technical Overview: C&G
Security and Accessibility: CSD Faces
Signage: Locomotion and Je Formule
Surface Area: 10,500 m² adjusted gross floor area / 9,200 m² floor area 

Facing the Arena, the museum’s design imbues this major site of classical antiquity with a new dynamism and a sense of complementarity, ensuring its rightful place in the city’s history. The soft and horizontal undulations, the predominance of glass, the transparence and the lightness of the Musée de la Romanité contrast with the verticality of the Arena’s stone arches and their imposing mass that has stood there for nearly two millennia. On one side, a large cylindrical volume surrounded by the stone verticals of the Roman arches, on the other a large square volume, which seems to be floating and entirely draped in a toga of pleated glass.

The façade of the Musée de la Romanité is designed to highlight the building’s lightness, heighten the floating sensation and create visual tension with the Arena. It supports 6,708 glass strips covering a surface of 2,500 m². Each strip holds seven screen-printed square tiles. The museum’s collections directly inspired the design of the façade. The glass squares subtly evoke Roman mosaics, which are among the major pieces of the collections (e.g. mosaic of “Penthea”).

This work within a work and the kinetic effects of this unique façade accentuate the sensation of movement resulting in its constant metamorphosis as the day goes by and from one season to the next, creating a dialog with the city by reflecting its colors, the light and the surrounding city life.

The Musée de la Romanité, the city’s future 21st century heritage, is designed to blend with the universal values of Nîmes and build around its Roman monuments, restoring their role as anchors and points of reference for the city. It is part of a wider program of preservation and enhancement of the material and immaterial heritage of the City of Nîmes. The future museum will be a key element of a coherent cultural and holistic policy at the service of a tourism which is open to the world.