2012 Charleville-Mézières, France

A Museum for Rimbaud

Arthur Rimbaud, French poet of the 19th century, spent his life on the road, shunning stability. The Rimbaud Museum project was conceived to showcase the life of the poet, and appropriately centres on the notions of absence and passage. Set in the old mill of his hometown, which he left at a very young age, this imposing monument becomes an immense open space, where scale is lost, possibilities and routes multiply, and the impossible becomes reality. Across the infinity of this landscape a river flows, visible below.

Lyrical openings and Rimbaud's works puncuate the walls, an interplay of story and absence which characterises the poet's wake, and represents our relationship to him across the centuries. This interaction also characterises the works, along with the life of their creator, as they move in and out of reality as they are beheld before visitors pass on, only to perhaps be revived in a performance or reading. As Rimbaud said, "I am another", and so the museum is a theatre where everyone and everything is an actor. Everyone is invited into this rich encounter with the Surrealism that Arthur Rimbaud himself embraced so zealously.

 

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Awards

Second Prize
Competition - Charleville-Mézières, France
A Museum for Rimbaud Lina Ghotmeh — Architecture FR16_01
A Museum for Rimbaud Lina Ghotmeh — Architecture FR16_02
A Museum for Rimbaud Lina Ghotmeh — Architecture FR16_03
A Museum for Rimbaud Lina Ghotmeh — Architecture FR16_04
A Museum for Rimbaud Lina Ghotmeh — Architecture FR16_05
A Museum for Rimbaud Lina Ghotmeh — Architecture FR16_06
A Museum for Rimbaud Lina Ghotmeh — Architecture FR16_07
A Museum for Rimbaud Lina Ghotmeh — Architecture FR16_08
A Museum for Rimbaud Lina Ghotmeh — Architecture FR16_09
A Museum for Rimbaud Lina Ghotmeh — Architecture FR16_10
A Museum for Rimbaud Lina Ghotmeh — Architecture FR16_11
A Museum for Rimbaud Lina Ghotmeh — Architecture FR16_12

Info + Press

Project information

Status
Competition
Location
Charleville-Mézières, France
Date
2012
Area
520 m²
Commission type
Public
Client
City Hall of Charleville-Mézières
Program
Museum

Project team

Architect
Dorell.Ghotmeh.Tane Architects, Paris
Engineering
ETC
Landscape
CAO PERROT STUDIO
Quantity Surveyor
Bureau Michel FORGUE
Structure
EVP
A Museum for Rimbaud Lina Ghotmeh — Architecture FR16_01
A Museum for Rimbaud Lina Ghotmeh — Architecture FR16_02
A Museum for Rimbaud Lina Ghotmeh — Architecture FR16_03
A Museum for Rimbaud Lina Ghotmeh — Architecture FR16_04
A Museum for Rimbaud Lina Ghotmeh — Architecture FR16_05
A Museum for Rimbaud Lina Ghotmeh — Architecture FR16_06
A Museum for Rimbaud Lina Ghotmeh — Architecture FR16_07
A Museum for Rimbaud Lina Ghotmeh — Architecture FR16_08
A Museum for Rimbaud Lina Ghotmeh — Architecture FR16_09
A Museum for Rimbaud Lina Ghotmeh — Architecture FR16_10
A Museum for Rimbaud Lina Ghotmeh — Architecture FR16_11
A Museum for Rimbaud Lina Ghotmeh — Architecture FR16_12