containing 2000sqm of contemporary gallery space on
four levels. The south elevation of the Cube consists
of a suspended curtain wall of marble and laminated
glass. The translucent marble references the use
of alabaster and marble to draw natural light into
medieval churches. Daylight reveals the rich texture
and coloured veins of the stone; at night it glows
outwardly. ‘The new extension has been designed from
the inside out,’ writes Stanton Williams director Patrick
Richard. ‘Its expressive power arises from the careful
handling of the gallery spaces and circulation areas, as
well as the way natural and artificial light is used.’
A new basement was excavated in the Palais to provide
facilities including teaching spaces, an auditorium,
conservation workshops and the Salle Blanche, an
exhibition room. A new archive building was also
added. In all, its area has increased to 17,000sqm
from 11,400sqm and the museum’s exhibition space
has grown by 30 per cent, allowing 900 works to go
on display at a time. The museum’s collection of
more than 12,000 pieces includes works by La Tour,
Ingres, Ernst, Delaunay, Picasso, Léger and Kandinsky.
New commissions that reflect light’s place there have
included Susanna Fritscher’s transparent silicone
Nothing But Air, Light and Time.
The long sequence of the galleries in the Palais has
been punctuated with inner rooms and display walls
to create more intimate spaces, and the laylights that
used to illuminate them have gone. They leaked and
let too much light into the south-facing galleries and
too little into the north-facing. So, they have been
replaced by superimposed layers of glass, stretched
fabrics and computer-controlled blinds hidden away in
the loft space. A micro-perforated acoustic layer and
two layers of a stretch membrane manage the thermal,
acoustic and lit environments, and create a subtly
this cloud effect and use the light in ways that were
impossible in the original 19th-century gallery’
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Daylight tempered by the movement of clouds, enters the Patio
through clear glazing, fabric blinds, low-emissivity acid-etched glass,
an acoustic membrane and, finally, two layers of stretch membrane
