The Airborne Museum

Antoine Cardi

• Architects

The surrounding landscape is a key component of the Airborne Museum, as it carries with it the memory of June 6, 1944. It contributes to the museum's didactic and memorial vocation. We want to make the most of it, by maintaining an ongoing dialogue between the architectural project and its context, between the scenography and the site, between the collection on display and this landscape.

photo_credit Antoine Cardi — Antoine Cardi

More than a simple link between the various buildings, the landscape is treated from a scenographic point of view, in that we propose that it plays a part in contextualizing the collection. The site will form the future backdrop for the WACO glider. Like a theater stage, we could say that the landscape is the set, with the glider as the main actor on the stage of the new pavilion.

The notion of an architectural promenade is inherent to a visit to any building, let alone a museum space. Visitors stroll between the massive volumes constituted by the various museographic sequences. They are naturally guided through this in-between space, while being drawn into the rooms. A number of framed views of the landscape provide selected vantage points on the site.

The new WACO pavilion must express the completeness of the museum, in the sense that it completes the process of deployment within the plot. Holding onto the south-western corner, leaning against the plot boundaries, it asserts the contour and stages the edge so that the site's interiority can be expressed. It also echoes the reception building, also on the northern boundary.