Architecture

Musée Mer Marine

Bordeaux

Musée Mer Marine is housed in a building constructed specifically to accommodate the museum and designed by Bordeaux architect Olivier Brochet. The building includes multiple exhibition rooms surrounded by gardens. Its permanent parcours presents a chrono-thematic route across three levels with more than 600 objects, combining the universal history of navigation with life-size boats, models, navigation instruments, maps, atlases, and artworks. The collections frequently focus on Bordeaux and its region, and partly come from the personal collection of museum founder Norbert Fradin. The ground floor and first floor are devoted to history, science, and sea and marine art, while the second floor addresses awareness of ocean fragility. The museum also includes a hybrid space for evolving exhibitions and has hosted temporary displays such as Horizon Liberté, Les Yeux dans le Bleu, Paradoxes, and a National Geographic exhibition titled Sous les mers - Au delà de l'image.

Map showing the location of Musée Mer Marine in Bordeaux
Location of Musée Mer Marine in Bordeaux

Nearby Objects

Building and Design

The Musee Mer Marine is housed in a building constructed specifically to accommodate the museum. The structure includes multiple exhibition rooms surrounded by gardens, giving the site a landscaped setting as part of its layout. The building was designed by Bordeaux architect Olivier Brochet, who also collaborated on the Musee de l'Orangerie and the Musee de l'Homme. This connection places the museum within the work of an architect with experience on other major cultural projects.

Permanent Route and Horizon Libertie

The permanent parcours at Musee Mer marine follows a chrono-thematic route across three levels and includes more than 600 objects. It presents the universal history of navigation worldwide through life-size boats, models, navigation instruments, maps, atlases, and artworks. The collections frequently focus on Bordeaux and its region, and some of the material comes from the personal collection of museum founder Norbert Fradin. The ground floor and first floor are devoted to collections on history, science, and sea and marine art.

The museum also hosts Horizon Liberte, an exhibition produced by Bordeaux Grands Evenements and the Office de Tourisme of Bordeaux Metropole. This exhibition combines the misfortunes faced by Liberty in navigation, boats, and oceans. It includes model ships such as Hermione, a 1 m model, a Liberty ship, a 5 m model, and Vendredi 13, a 2.5 m model, as well as an artwork by Barthelemy Toguo representing a migrants boat. Horizon Liberte is organized into three main sequences: Bordeaux-Americas, Larguer les amarres, and From Ulysses to today's migrants.

Permanent Routes and Ocean Awareness

The permanent parcours on the second floor is dedicated to raising awareness of the fragility of the ocean. It includes a hybrid space called Discover the world from the ocean, which is used for evolving exhibitions. On 26 September 2020, it inaugurated the exhibition Les Yeux dans le Bleu, featuring photographs by Rodolphe Guignard and organized in partnership with the association Spero Mare, founded by Estelle Lefebvre and Geraldine Parodi. The second-floor Paradoxes exhibition presents works by Philippe Pasqua, Gerard Rencinan, Flore Sigrist, and Ben Thouard. Through these artworks, the museum aims to raise public awareness and mobilize protection of the oceans, while also giving artists a space to express their vision of environmental issues and challenges.

Temporary Exhibitions at the Museum

The museum's exhibition hall opened with temporary exhibitions that became an important part of its program. One early exhibition was the National Geographic show Sous les mers - Au del a de l image, which presented more than 120 photographs by reporters Paul Nicklen and David Doubilet. It also included photographic works tracing the evolution of marine world reporting and technologies since 1956. The second temporary exhibition at MMM was Semp e en liberte, itineraire d un dessinateur d humour, a retrospective featuring nearly 350 original drawings by Bordeaux illustrator Jean-Jacques Semp e. The third exhibition was DA VINCI, les inventions d un genie, a presentation previously shown in Bruges, Istanbul, and Lyon. For the Bordeaux display, it brought together about 100 reconstructed models based on Leonardo da Vinci's drawings.