Monacopolis - NMNM - Nouveau Musée National de Monaco

Jean-Baptiste Olive
Vue de la côte de Saint-Roman à la pointe de Monaco, (détail) ca 1900
Peinture à l’huile sur toile marouflée sur panneaux de bois
Archives Monte-Carlo S.B.M

Villa Sauber offers a circuit through the emblematic neighbourhood of Monte-Carlo. The exhibition draws on more than 600 historical plans mostly hailing from the Société des Bains de Mer, sheds light on the work of the architects involved – over and above the famous signature of Charles Garnier – and underscores the extraordinary capacity for renewal which hallmarks architectures associated with vacationing and holidays, all created and turned towards a versatile public with fluctuating desires. To take just this one example, between 1863 and 1910, no less than ten architects, including Henri Schmit, would follow in each other’s footsteps to enlarge, transform, embellish, rectify, unify and even plan the Casino-Opéra de Monte Carlo.

The architecture of the Casino, the Café de Paris, the Hôtel de Paris, the Etablissements des bains de mer, and the Palais des beaux-arts, all evoked thanks to mainly unpublished documents (plans, watercolours, photographs, films…) become the ideal setting for the presentation of these outstanding collections.

It has taken Nathalie Rosticher Giordano two years to locate and process archives in Monaco’s institutional collections and administrative archives, in the private collections of architects, promoters and other interested parties, but also in Parisian institutions.The exhibition extends beyond the museum walls, and the city thus assumes a new dimension, at once a place of memory, a place where people live, and a space of projections.

Curator : Nathalie Rosticher Giordano
Design : Martino Gamper, Maki Suzuki / åbäke, London

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