Musee du Quai Branly

摘要

These days, Paris is definitely not a hot spot of urban planning, architecture and landscape. Past are the times when every year a new public building was inaugurated, a new park opened to the public, a neighbourhood upgraded through new social housing. The 80s and 90s put Paris on the map as a focal point of public architecture, urban open space and urban renewal. This was the era of President Mitterrand's "grands projets", including the Arche de la Defense, the Bastille Opera, the Louvre Pyramid and the French National Library. At the beginning of the 80s, the international competition for Parc de la Villette set the question of the city park on the urban agenda. Its different forms and functions have been tested through the creation of many new parks in the centre of Paris, Parc de Bercy and Parc Andre-Citroeen being the most famous ones. No such spectacular urban commitments had marked President Chirac's era. This changed in June 2006, when the so-called Musee du Quai Branly was inaugurated - an important public institution occupying one of the last unbuilt plots along the Pviver Seine, some steps away from the Eiffel Tower.