City-of-architecture Museum, 15 centuries of models, paintings and moldings

A global approach to architecture through the City of architecture Museum

The City of architecture Museum houses a museum, a library, an auditorium, a school for architects, a specialized bookshop, and a restaurant. 22,000m², entirely dedicated to architecture and urban planning to discover, look at, learn, understand and stroll around.

Disseminating knowledge of architectural heritage

The City of architecture Museum is today an essential player in the dissemination of architectural culture, whether it is a matter of transmitting knowledge, supporting architectural quality, contributing to the protection of remarkable elements of our built heritage, or helping creativity and innovation. This polyhedral place wants to give thought and to awaken the critical spirit, in order to make citizens actors of the architectural and urban fact for the future.

The visitor will find a global apprehension of architecture, on the scale of the city and the development of territories and a differentiated approach, by deepening certain masterpieces or by transversal accounts on housing, public buildings, techniques, actors of architecture, or urbanism.

The most beautiful buildings from the Middle Ages to today

The City of architecture Museum offers a unique experience: a tour of France's most beautiful buildings and constructions from the Middle Ages to the present day in 1.5 hours. A collection that brings together models and life-size reproductions; a museum of architecture in 3 dimensions!

3 galleries to understand architecture

The Cité de l'Architecture et du Patrimoine has three galleries where the permanent collections are presented:

• the gallery of life-size casts;
• the gallery of paintings and stained glass
• and the gallery of models of modern and contemporary architecture.

The City of architecture Museum through time

By its collections and the chronological scope of its journey, the Musée des Monuments Français is one of the main and oldest museums dedicated to architecture and monumental heritage. It was born the Museum of Comparative Sculpture in 1882, transformed into the Museum of French Monuments in 1937, and then became part of a new cultural establishment created in 2004, the City of architecture Museum (Cité de l'architecture et du patrimoine.)

The collections of the City of architecture Museum

The museum's collections offer an approach to architecture and monumental art from a wide variety of perspectives. The architectural collections focus on the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries and include drawings, models, photographs, and prototypes. In addition, there is an important collection of models dealing with medieval and modern heritage. The monumental art collections include casts of sculptures and details of ornamentation from the 11th to the 19th century, as well as reproductions of wall paintings (from the 11th to the 16th century) and stained glass.

Periods of the City of architecture Museum collections

Middle Ages (5th - 15th)
Romanesque (10th - 12th)
Gothic (12th - 15th)
Renaissance (15th - 16th)
Neoclassicism (18th - 19th)
Movement (XXth)
Contemporary (20th - 21st)

Library of contemporary architecture

In addition to the museum and the school of architecture, the building includes the Archive Center of 20th-century architecture. The City of architecture Museum has a library of 45,000 books, 300 magazines, documentary films, and electronic documents, with 100 places on 1,300 m2, and offers an online documentary portal. The vaulted ceiling of the library reproduces the Romanesque frescoes of the nave of the abbey of Saint-Savin-sur-Gartempe.