Building History at the Cité de l'Architecture et du Patrimoine

On the first Sunday of every month, entry to national museums in France is free. It costs nothing to access such temples of culture as the Louvre or the Orangery and certainly in Paris people take advantage of this in their droves. The human snakes outside the biggest museums are usually long and winding, but on free Sundays they swell to even greater proportions, becoming populated particularly with families and especially with young children. Parisian parents seem to view this as a risk-free opportunity to initiate cultural beginners into the rich world of marble exhibition halls.

A leisurely Sunday museum stroll can be the perfect antidote to Saturday night revelry. I joined the queues the day after my thirtieth birthday to walk the halls of the Musee d'Orsay, bleary-eyed and drinking in the creativity all around. Any frustration at the waiting time to get in to such a big museum was tempered by a feeling of bewildered gladness, brought on by marvelling at the fact that so many people would get up at the weekend to do something so worthy and fulfilling. To have the chance to view such an impressive collection with no financial outlay was a delight, but having taken up temporary residence in Paris I developed the desire to tread beyond the beaten cultural track. Trying to avoid the crowds led my husband and I to one of the lesser known museums.

The imposing shell of the Palais de Chaillot, wings gaping in a giant stone embrace and stepped concourse looking out across the Seine to the graceful girders of the Eiffel Tower on the facing bank, houses a number of worthy institutions, including the Cité de l'Architecture et du Patrimoine. With tall windows elegantly framing the cross-river vista it might be easy for the visitor to become distracted from the contents of the museum, but for the fascinating nature of the exhibits. Underneath the vast, curving ironwork of the roof beams are detailed architectural models, plans and plaster mouldings of French churches, cathedrals and sundry other public buildings. On nearby computer terminals you can view these representations in their original forms, using buttons and joysticks to pan cameras around the real building façades and interiors, paying them a virtual visit alongside viewing copies of their finest features close up.

The striking effect of the place is twofold. First you wonder at the skill and patience of the modelmakers, working to record the most minute details of key buildings for posterity. The tiny, doll-house sized Sainte Chapelle, complete with internal lighting to show the fineness of the reproduced stained glass windows to its best effect, must have been a life's work for somebody. Then you move on to appreciate the sheer majesty of the original pieces of stonework from which copies were made. Hung in chiselled whiteness against deep red walls, the beauty of each carefully carved hand or the expression on the face of each apostle can clearly be seen. Saints loom over you from every wall and around each corner there are ornate columns and gateways, captured here out of time and location as copies of another place worthy of attention and note.

Each exhibit is carefully catalogued and displayed alongside a map showing where in France the original is located. As you grapple with the detailed French architectural discourse, struggling often to translate the terms used, you slowly get drawn into the history of the art. The geographical progress of architectural styles across the country becomes apparent, along with the techniques and features that developed in unique ways in specific locations. You start to appreciate the size of the country beyond the capital city and the distinctive building methods of its regions.

Climbing a flight of stairs and silently skirting an impressive, light-filled library space, brings you into a gallery of ecclesiastical murals. In rounded nooks set into the modern, square plasterboard walls little mock chapels had been created to display the art. It was possible to sit and ponder the curved painted ceilings, viewing them just as churchgoers would have through the years. These, too, were reproductions, each brushstroke carefully recreated after many hours of studying the originals, the pictures now preserved for posterity and seeming quite at home in the large, quiet gallery space.

In between the painted recesses was woven an interesting temporary exhibition about the building of the Palais de Chaillot itself. The decision to demolish the Trocadero Palace and build something new on top of its grand footprint was, understandably, controversial and the story of the whole process, undertaken in the name of modernity, was recounted here through a range of photographs and original documents. There wasn't anything wrong with the Trocadero. Planners just made a bold choice to knock it down and put up something different. Seeing this seemed to put all of the models and reproductions in the museum neatly into context. The march of progress cannot be stopped. All over France there are great buildings displaying great beauty, but who knows when someone may deem them to be obsolete? When will they simply become incongruous and too out of step with the prevailing aesthetic? Taking the time to record their features preserves them for years to come. It may also go some way towards assuaging the guilt felt in the wake of the constant search for the new and the painfully jarring move towards creating the beautiful buildings of tomorrow.

Cité de l'Architecture et du Patrimoine website.