This is the Museum of the Great War located in Peronne, France. This is a very unique structure because the modern museum was designed around and incorporates a 13th century castle in Peronne. The castle is located at the heart of where battles were fought during World War One also referred to as the Great War. The castle marks the entrance to the museum and is a symbolic site of WW1 history and culture. The permanent exhibition in the modern part of the museum was designed by architect Henri Ciriani and was completed in 1992.
Ciriani became the architect for this project after he entered into an architectural competition in 1987 and won. Ciriani used white concrete, to emphasize “the nobility of the material, on the same level as stone, brick and marble.” The white concrete structure creates a unique building that looks modern and clean. Ciriani utilized stilts in his design and incorporated a lot light inside the building to erase any effects of heaviness linked to the use of concrete.
This is the biggest museum in Europe about WW1. The website for the Historial de la Grande Guerre describes that “The historial was designed by Henri-Edouard Ciriani who used its architecture to express with great emphasis, the building’s vocation, which is to explain the history of WW1in a different manner, without reducing it to battles alone.”
References:
https://www.historial.fr/en/presentation-2/around-the-historial/
