The Musée d'Art moderne Lille Métropole opened in 1983 to display the works of art donated by Jean Masurel — a Parisian art-loving manufacturer — including more than two hundred pieces dated 1905–1950. The museum and its outdoor sculpture park lie in Villeneuve-d'Ascq, the first new town in France, within the Lille metropolitan area. The construction of the new town began in the early 1970s on a site where, in 1944, the SS had massacred 86 inhabitants. The architect of the museum was Roland Simounet. Beyond exhibiting works of art, the museum's programme included educational activities, a library, a reading room and other spaces. An important shift in the museum's history occurred in 1995, when l'Association l'Aracine donated more than three thousand works of art by 170 French and foreign artists.
In July 2002 the Lille City Council launched a competition with a dual brief: improving and reorganising the existing museum, and adding 2,000 m² of useful floor area to the present 5,600 m². The budget was set at €15.9 million and delivery foreseen for 2006. The choice of the invited teams reflected a deliberate attention from the jury to the younger generation: five young teams were called to the competition, which began in September 2002. In the end the jury announced the project of Manuelle Gautrand as the winner. Thierry Dupas, in l'architecture d'aujourd'hui, describes the five projects as follows:
The project of Arnod et Hérault, with its construction of a "generic volume" in coloured trapezoidal glass, has no shared point with the existing structure and appears indifferent and detached towards it. The project of Fabre / Speller-Grafteaux & Klein, with an independent and detached essence, attaches itself to the museum through a simple glazed corridor placed opposite the labyrinthine arrangement of the two existing galleries. In the project of Anouk Legendre and Nicolas Demazières (X-TU), what catches the eye is the rupture and the confrontation of "static figures" in steel. The balance and contrast experienced in Xaveer De Geyter's compressed trapezoid maintains the relation with the existing museum and offers a new reading of perpendicular arrangements, giving a strong and different identity to the work. And the project of Manuelle Gautrand — the winner — pursues a tree-like transformation, moving from the Simounet building towards a kind of "landscape architecture".
Notes: 1- Musée d'Art moderne Lille Métropole; 2- J. Masurel; 3- Villeneuve-d'Ascq; 4- Roland Simounet; 5- l'Association l'Aracine; 6- Manuelle Gautrand; 7- Thierry Dupas; 8- l'architecture d'aujourd'hui; 9- Arnod et Hérault; 10- Fabre / Speller-Grafteaux & Klein; 11- Anouk Legendre; 12- Nicolas Demazières; 13- Xaveer De Geyter.
