From Private Residence to Public Museum: the Restoration and Adaptation of the Parisian Hotel. The Hotel Sale as the Musee Picasso and the Hotel de Saint-Aignan as the Musee d’Art et d’Histoire du Judaisme

Caroline Stone
Trinity College Dublin
Department of History of Art and Architecture
2006
BA

Subject: Architecture
Country: France
Period: 17th and 20th Century

10,000 words

This dissertation investigates the conversion of Parisian hotels to the role of public museums, considering how this task was approached in the late twentieth century conversions of two contemporary hotels: the Hotel Sale, today home to the Musee Picasso, and the Hotel de Saint-Aignan, now housing the Musee d’Art et d’Histoire du Judaisme. The author considers the challenging and often conflicting needs of conservation and presentation of the collection that must be met with the integrity of the historic hotel in mind. The study examines in what manner the restoration of the hotel’s original fabric impacts upon the display of the museum’s collection, the question of spatial logic in the context of the hotel’s former spatial usages, and a discussion of the various modern installations required and how these relate to our appreciation of both the existing building and the collection.

Irish Georgian Society

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From Private Residence to Public Museum: the Restoration and Adaptation of the Parisian Hotel. The Hotel Sale as the Musee Picasso and the Hotel de Saint-Aignan as the Musee d’Art et d’Histoire du Judaisme