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Global warning

Theodore Dalrymple

Wednesday, 30th January 2008

Theodore Dalrymple delivers a global warning

Am I alone in finding this gratingly condescending? What it really means is ‘Left bank to cannibals! Left bank to cannibals! We think your carvings are not bad for people like you, who know nothing of tarte tatin.’ Nor am I sure that the inheritors of the ancient and exquisite civilisations of east, south, central and south-east Asia will altogether appreciate being lumped together with the cannibals of Melanesia and head-hunters of Borneo. How parochial can you get!

The Musée du Quai Branly manages the difficult feat of being at the same time hugely expensive and looking very cheap. Clad in horrible metal plates painted the colour of an old tramp steamer, its façade is interrupted, for no obvious reason, with large protruding metal boxes of bright primary colours. A long window reveals an enormous photograph of a tropical forest: the purest kitsch.

Only 18 months after its opening, it already looks dirty and dilapidated: indeed, it looks designed specifically to become so. On entering it, I noticed a large space to the left of the walkway that ascends to the galleries in which there was a pile of what appeared to be rubbish.

One never knows these days: a pile of rubbish could also be a priceless exhibit. But no, this was no exhibit: part of the ceiling above had fallen in, revealing gaping holes and the gimcrack nature of the whole construction.

What has gone wrong, that such a hideous and dysfunctional monstrosity could even be imagined, let alone constructed? The name of the architect, by strange coincidence, gives a clue: Jean Nouvel.

The demon of novelty as a virtue in itself has taken possession of our souls. And this is because we feel the need to mark the world whether we have any talent or not. Thus a building such as Musée du Quai Branly is to the elite what graffiti is to the ego-inflamed adolescent of the banlieues.

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J. Parker

February 2nd, 2008 7:44pm

A certain Prince has made similar observations. I wonder if the recent violent weather is Mother Nature's response?

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