Musée Spiritain des Arts Africains
The Spiritan community has a collection of African art that as never been exposed.
The museum has the triple ambition of preserving, presenting and promoting exchanges around the works.
The project, integrating with the existing concrete structure, offers two directions, inversely proportional. From the entrance, the collection is shown at a glance, and thus offers cross-relationships between the works. The overlapping and growing development of white clay blocks directly evokes stacking, storage, prioritization. A shaping of the act of collecting.
As we move forward, the proportions of the windows gradually encourage the visitor to physically experience a changing look at the works, encompassing them first, until they are themselves enveloped. At the bottom of the exhibition is the reserve whose dimensions are difficult to estimate. From the edge of the storeroom, the tall clay units confine the space, reduce the depths of field and attenuate the acoustic atmosphere, offering a more intimate relationship to the most sacred works. The parquet flooring and clear plasters calmly reflect the diffused light, staging the discovery of a confidential collection.
