200 m2et presented works from 500 to 800

After four years of work, the Fabre Museum has reopened its doors. For regulars, the old Museum is unrecognizable. If we stick to numbers, the display area is passed 3,000 to 9.200 m2et presented works, from 500 to 800. The architectural project, led by the firms Pike-Lajus-Pueyo de Bordeaux and Emmanuel Montpellier Nebout, was a real challenge. It was rethinking a Petri dish complex building of history by connecting three disparate buildings from different periods, the former College of the Jesuits in the 17th century, the 18th Massilian hotel building from the 19th century, poorly connected, with floors that were not at the same level.

The wager was them back a unit while retaining much of the architectural elements of time and by incorporating a contemporary architecture for new constructions which provide binding. About 6 metres were dug under parts of the Museum to connect buildings between them and create additional classrooms. The task seemed so complicated it was same question all shaving for new!

The result is appealing for a total cost of EUR 62 million. All of the collections has been scanned, which allows, with computers in open access, to prepare his visit, consult the data at various stages and have the answers to all questions at the end of route.

"The scope" of Daniel Buren

Located on the Esplanade in the heart of the city, the Fabre Museum adjoins the palais des congrès le Corum and the new Opera Berlioz. Access to the central atrium that allows logical and self-contained routes in the various collections, be guided by "The scope", a work on the ground, marble and granite, conducted by Daniel Buren. This composition of 40 metres by 7 metres wide which accompanies the visitors in the Museum symbolizes the opening of the building on the 21st century and contemporary art.

Also known for its collections (the 16th century to the 18th-century Dutch and Flemish paintings), but for works by Caravaggio, Zurbaran, Chick, etc., its true wealth lies in its paintings of the 19th: Alexandre Cabanel, Gustave Courbet, Frédéric Bazille, Jean Hugo, etc.

The Museum also to enter into the 20th century and the current century with the painters of the movement Supports-Surfaces (including Vincent Bioulès and Claude Viallat) without forgetting François Morellet and especially the implementation of the gift Soulages. More than 2 million euros has been invested since 2003 in the purchase of works of contemporary artists 40. In addition, 932 works has been restored, with funding from Montpellier agglomeration.

The Fabre Museum is also a large collection of sculptures from the 18th century to the 20th, one of the most beautiful collections a collection of Art Deco and French of graphic art with more than 4,000 works of the Italian Renaissance to the 20th century.

The Fabre Museum is entered the contemporary painting by offering the largest collection of works by Pierre Soulages. Exactly 31 paintings, an "old" canvas dating from 1951 that was exposed to the Moma of New York that Soulages has recovered, that he would never sell and offers at the Fabre Museum. This painter born in Rodez, who attended the Fabre Museum when he was studying at the fine arts in Montpellier currently lives in Sète. "There is not, he said, all of the aspects of my painting, but the most representative of the paintings of my entire career."The painter has appreciated to be fully associated architects in the design of the rooms which are devoted. To showcase his works where the black dominates, they carried a flag of light. "I practice, he said, this color since childhood." I preferred to dip the brush in the black bottle that use color. Today, I use it for its power of contrast, the white of the paper became more white.

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