Following the huge success in Berlin, where the National Historical Museum opened in 2004 France is currently building a “House of History”.
However, where the German Historical Museum is moulded as a traditional museum showcasing a huge and fascinating collection of objects, the French project is planned in the French tradition as a cultural institution. Accordingly, it primarily aims to “highlight the importance of history to today’s society, by exploring all its facets, encouraging discussion and debate on key chapters in French history, and widening its scope to European and international contexts.”
As such it is less planned as a museum than a coordinating initiative and a portal, where visitors thanks to an ambitious digitization strategy presumably will be enabled to access a huge quantity of resources on the History of France.
The exhibition space, which is currently under construction, is located in the historic heart of Paris, in the Rohan-Soubise section of the Marais (beside the National Archives). The primary exhibition will consist of a “Gallery of Time”. Apart from that there will be room for temporary exhibitions, conferences, discussions, seminars, films and concerts. The opening of the venue is planned to 2015.
Until then visitors are invited to consult the homepage, where a number of digital exhibitions are under construction. Also the new House of History is engaged in the current flagship exhibition of the famous 3D models of French cities stemming from the 17th to 19th century. The models, which were created in order to enlighten officers and engineers on the proper fortifications and military strategies for defence, are a treasure trove of information on landscapes, houses, streets, public buildings, churches etc.
Normally the models are kept at the “Musée des plans reliefs” near the national museum at Hôtel National des Invalides, where 26 of the 150 are on permanent show. Right now another sixteen exceptionally fine models are shown at the “Grand Palais”. All are built to the scale of 1/600th. Nevertheless they are remarkable both for their extraordinary detail and for their sheer size: the scale model of Cherbourg covers for instance some 160 square metres.
