The Museum of Decorative Arts and Design (French: ''Musée des Arts décoratifs et du Design'') is a French museum located into a former 18th-century

Bordeaux Bordeaux ( , ; Gascon oc, Bordèu ; eu, Bordele; it, Bordò; es, Burdeos) is a port city on the river Garonne in the Gironde department, Southwestern France. It is the capital of the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region, as well as the prefect ...

aristocratic mansion, which presents today a collection of

Decorative arts ] The decorative arts are arts or crafts whose object is the design and manufacture of objects that are both beautiful and functional. It includes most of the arts making objects for the interiors of buildings, and interior design, but not usual ...

and furniture. Since 2013, the museum also deals with modern design.

Location

In the center of Bordeaux, close to the Palais Rohan, Bordeaux, town hall and the square Gambetta, the museum is accessible by line B of the

tramway de Bordeaux The Bordeaux tramway network (french: Tramway de Bordeaux) consists of four lines serving the city of Bordeaux in Nouvelle-Aquitaine in southwestern France. The system has a route length of , serving a total of 133 tram stops. The first line of ...

from station Gambetta-Mériadeck.

History

Hôtel de Lalande

In 1778, the architect Etienne Laclotte built for the parlementarian jurist Pierre de Raymond de Lalande, the Hôtel de Lalande, one of the most beautiful

townhouses A townhouse, townhome, town house, or town home, is a type of terraced housing. A modern townhouse is often one with a small footprint on multiple floors. In a different British usage, the term originally referred to any type of city residence ...

in Bordeaux. Belonging to the "

noblesse de robe The concept of the Scottish Noblesse, a class of nobles of either peerage or non-peerage rank, was prominently advocated for by Sir Thomas Innes of Learney during his tenure as an officer of arms. Innes of Learney believed that Scottish armiger ...

", Raymond de Lalande used to possess, by his marriage to Jeanne de Lalande-Gayon, dame d’Urtubie, extensive holdings with slaves in the colony of Saint-Domingue (present-day Haiti). Sold in 1828, the property of the Lalande heirs changed hands several times during the 19th century. Finally, in 1880 the city of Bordeaux acquired the Hôtel de Lalande and converted into a police and vice control headquarters. At the rear of the property, a jail was built in the former garden.

The museum

In 1925, several rooms of the Hôtel de Lalande were used to display works of art belonging to the City of Bordeaux. The first museum was called ''Musée d'Art ancien''. The museum was obliged to close during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

, and in 1940 the collections were crated and stored in the cellars of the Musée des Beaux-Arts (Fine Arts Museum). On 2 July 1955, the museum reopened to the public as the ''Musée des Arts Décoratifs'' (Decorative Arts Museum). In 1984, the museum was converted to evoke a wealthy aristocratic residence, typical of the Enlightenment in Bordeaux and its reserves are located in the former prison. In 2013, the institution was renamed the ''Musée des Arts décoratifs et du Design'' on Constance Rubini's initiative, thus indicating the wish to turn it into a major place for disseminating the culture of design. The former jail building now houses the temporary exhibitions.

Historical Monuments

Both buildings, the hôtel de Lalande and the former prison, are classified as historical monuments in 2018.

Collections

The museography features several reconstitutions (in the spirit of American period rooms) as well as rooms in which display cases and antique furniture exist side by side in tasteful harmony. The museum's collections had expanded, ranging from the Middle Ages to the late 18th century and illustrating the applied arts in crafts involving wood, metal, earth and fire. In particular, the ceramics collections, through their extraordinary wealth and variety, were unsurpassed in France.

References

Museums in Bordeaux Local museums in France Decorative arts museums in France {{Gironde-geo-stub