Studio Adrien Gardère

After winning the architectural competition in 2004, Japanese architects SANAA called on Studio Adrien Gardère to design the museography of all the museum’s spaces including the “Galerie du Temps”, the storage and discovery areas open to visit, as well as the first two inaugural temporary exhibitions.

The exhibition design of the permanent “Galerie du Temps” -- backbone of the Louvre-Lens Museum and of exceptional dimensions (3200 m2)-- breaks with the canons of traditional museography.

To give shape to the scientific project which deploys a chronological journey of 5,000 years of art history; SAG removed all partitioning and created an introduction terrace that overlooks the entire gallery, offering the public a unique journey in the history of art. The gallery walls, cladded with slightly reflective anodized aluminum, bears a chronological frieze that delineates space and time.

Design, light, layout, circulation: everything has been designed to enhance the works and leave the visitor the freedom and pleasure to establish a dialogue with an infinite conversation.

Louvre-Lens created a “behind-the-scenes” storage space, including a technical area and restoration workshops, much of it visible to the public, inviting them to feel a part of the process. In addition, the Studio designed in partnership with its partner, On-situ, a “Discovery Space,” using virtual interpretation tools to reveal the “secret life” of the museum’s work to visitors.