Loire Marine Museum
Previously housed in the cellars of the surviving wing of the Château de Châteauneuf-sur-Loire, the Musée de la Marine de Loire has now been relocated to the former stables. It features an exhibition gallery, a documentation centre, an audiovisual room, and conservation offices. This project celebrates both the Loire River and the site’s architectural heritage.
The castle was formerly a property of the State but was sold during the Revolution. Only its north wing survives. The edifice had housed the town hall since the early twentieth century; the Musée de la Marine de Loire located in its cellars. The studio converted the site’s former stables into a new space for the museum, expanding it to include a temporary exhibition gallery, a documentation centre, an audiovisual room, and conservation offices.
The architectural approach drew on the principles of legibility and reversibility set out in the Venice Charter (1964) for work on historic monuments. Without touching the existing structure, the project draws attention to the design of the original architecture, making it easier to see thanks to a combination of structural elements (which can readily be removed) and materials like timber and metal, as well as how those materials are used in relationship to the original structure.
The interior spaces were made more visually legible, notably the two naves where horses were stabled and the mansard loft where grooms lived. The vaulted volumes and the materiality of their stone and brick construction evoke their original purpose. Visitors are taken on an architectural promenade in the sense of Le Corbusier: a journey with an implicit itinerary, set by the works on display, in which scenography and architecture are inseparable.