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Apr 21, 2023

Inspired by Japanese architecture, Kengo Kuma completes the new Albert Kahn Museum building by adding a clad of aluminum and bamboo louvers

Paris, France The new building of the Albert Kahn Museum in Paris, designed by

Paris, France

The new building of the Albert Kahn Museum in Paris, designed by Kengo Kuma, his design team, and landscape architect Michel Desvigne Paysagiste is fully inspired by Albert Kahn's deep connection and love with Japan.

The architect has placed a link between culture and domesticated nature at the heart of his project meant to expand the museum and reorganize its four historical buildings, which cadence the visitor itinerary.

"The dream of Albert Kahn of blending the garden and display space was achieved by blending the environment and architecture," says Kengo Kuma.

Establishing a dialogue between the building and the garden through an element borrowed from traditional Japanese architecture: the engawa, a borderland between inside and outside.

The reinterpretation of this element, which was developed throughout all the renovated buildings makes it possible to create a link between the site's different elements and forge a coherent identity for the whole. The repeated echoing of the materials – wood, bamboo, metal – in each of the spaces also emphasizes this overall logic.

The façade facing the street is an enclosure wall that both protects and reveals the new museum. The outer envelope of metallic folds hides the interior vegetal setting from view; at night, it reveals the lights of the museum between the lacquered slats, like a lantern. Once past the sloping entrance, the architectural vocabulary changes, with an interplay of screens, pine slats, aluminum mesh and walkways that cadence the interior façade and connect it to the garden.

Inside, each opening is a composition. Visitors, looking through the tall glass walls, are immediately plunged into the meadow and the garden. Dynamic longitudinal lines respond in kind, from the floor slats to the bleachers, all the way up to the infinity-style wood slat ceiling, the whole underlined through mirror-like effects.To conclude, following the dream of Albert Kahn, the landscape architect has reproduced the gardens from the five continents of the world and the Japanese garden in particular which was built initially by gardeners that he hired from Japan is a sight to see.

Project: Albert Kahn MuseumArchitects: Kengo Kuma & AssociatesLead Architect: Kengo KumaLandscape Architects: Michel Desvigne PaysagisteClient: Hauts-de-Seine DepartmentPhotographers: Michel Denancé, Think Utopia, and Olivier Ravoire