Recognized by the luminous blue of its enamelled panels, the Musée départemental Arles antique – affectionately nicknamed “the blue museum” by the people of Arles – is immediately distinguished by its Emalit enamelled glass, which reflects the visitor’s face, the surrounding landscape, the play of light, clouds and the passage of time…
To mark its thirtieth anniversary, the museum is staging a retrospective exhibition devoted to the history of its exceptional archaeological collections and to the building itself, which has become a benchmark in museum architecture. From the Alyscamps to the nave of the former church of Saint-Anne, the journey of the collections through the emblematic monuments of Arles gradually led to the birth of a new kind of museum, spearheaded by Jean-Maurice Rouquette, then chief curator of the museums of Arles and director of the museum. Today, as the building enters a new phase with an ambitious renovation project, the exhibition revisits the career of Henri Ciriani, a key figure in French architecture in the last third of the 20th century, who gave Arles one of its first major public commissions.
