Malraux modified.

The Musee Andre Malraux, one of France's most architecturally innovative and culturally significant art museums, has been given a vigorous new lease of life.

The Musee Andre Malraux at Le Havre re-opened this spring after an extensive programme of works by Nancy-based architects Laurent and Emmanuelle Beaudouin, who have sought to retain the spirit of the remarkable building completed in 1961 to designs by architects Guy Lagneau and Raymond Audigier with Jean Prouve as consultant. It was the first 'Musee - Maison de la Culture' opened by Malraux as Minister of Cultural Affairs and, in keeping with his mission to make culture accessible to a much wider public, it combined the functions of a museum with those of a centre for cultural activities.(1) Hailed in 1961 as the first museum of importance to have been built in France since the 1930s,(2) it could be seen as the forerunner for the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris.

Prominently sited at the harbour-mouth, the building broke with the idiom adopted by Auguste Perret and his atelier for the reconstruction of Le Havre's carpet-bombed town centre. By making pragmatic use of industrial technology to provide flexible, naturally lit spaces with views out to sea, the museum/cultural centre addressed the brighter future represented by the post-war revival of transatlantic shipping in the fast-expanding seaport (the new 2044 passenger-capacity transatlantic liner France first sailed from Le Havre in January 1962). But the cultural centre later moved out, the museum lost its sparkle and, on sunny days, it became uncomfortably hot.

Upgrading exhibition spaces to current conservation standards and improving facilities for visitors were among the chief requirements of the renovation programme. The Beaudouins won the commission in 1994 with a scheme proposing substantial internal restructuring to achieve these ends, while stinted somewhat on the amount of floor area required by the brief so as to prevent the character of the 1961 building from being lost. They discussed their scheme with Guy Lagneau, and with Jean Dimitrijevic and Michel Weill, who had worked with him on the original building (all three former pupils of Perret) and continued to consult Lagneau throughout the design stage.

Externally, the general appearance of the museum has been little changed. Jean Prouve's much-imitated 'paralum' of fixed oval-section aluminium baffles - now restored to pristine condition - continues to oversail the clear-glazed triple-pitched roof of the main building volume, set on its moated semi-basement. And the museum's symbol, G. H. Adam's massive concrete sculpture The Eye, has retained its place, just proud of the seaward facade.

As in 1961, the entrance is reached by ramp and bridge at the southern end of the building, where new visitor facilities are concentrated. Now flanked by glass brick partitions, the entrance lobby opens onto a promenade deck giving views into the museum (through glass) and plunging views into the new library below. Ticket office, cloakroom and shop are tucked away beyond a staircase with a hull-like closed timber string (retained from the original building) leading up to the bar (cramped), restaurant (with sea views) and club-room.

Now wholly contained within a computer-controlled, air-conditioned environment, the museum space has been completely restructured. The various devices provided in 1961 to achieve maximum flexibility - fixings for suspending and anchoring display panels and space-dividers, for example - have all been dispensed with, and the former upper gallery levels have been replaced by a more extensive upper floor. Gone, too, is the system of interchangeable white and black plastic panels intended to control the diffusion of natural top-lighting. Part of the former suspended ceiling has been reinstated with modern translucent panels, other parts have been plastered over, and various incursions have been made into the roof void to channel light onto specific exhibits.

Exhibition spaces now range in size and character from shrine-like areas designed for specific exhibits - notably the museum's important collection of studies by Eugene Boudin (Monet's first teacher), to computer-controlled glass-fronted display cabinets (not in operation at the time of writing) designed to enable visitors to call up selected original drawings from the museum's reserves. Temporary exhibitions have been allocated the retained atrium-like top-lit double-height volume with its full-height window-wall overlooking the sea.

A small complaint here. To upgrade the performance of the double-glazing to the west elevation, adjustable vertical glass louvres with vertical fitting have been installed in the 800mm air gap, while horizontal fritting has been applied to the inner glass plane - and very nasty optical effects are produced by the interplay between them.

Nevertheless, the present temporary exhibition of Braque painting flows seamlessly into related areas of the permanent collections,(3) the museum has been given a new lease of life and the Beaudouins have succeeded in retaining something of the building's original character.

1 A temporary exhibition of tapestries, a concert and a film-show for an audience of 800 were held in the building when it was inaugurated by Andre Malraux on 24 June 1961, according to L'Architecture d'Aujourd'hui No 97, September 1961.

2 L'Oeil No 79/80, Paris, 1961 pp52-57.

3 Georges Braque: L'espace, until 21 June 1999.

Architect

Laurent and Emmanuelle Beaudouin, Nancy, France

Project team

L. Beaudouin, E. Beaudouin, S. Barclay, J. P. Crousse, A. Creusot, A. Purpuri, C. Presle, L. Carrara-Cagni

Structural engineers

RFR, C. Wininger

Photographs

Jean Marie Monthiers