Museums in Paris: Cinematique Francaise

The Cinémathèque Francaise is a museum and archive dedicated to film.  The archive has a large collection of films (more than 40,000), plus a large theater for screenings.  The museum is home to many artifacts, especially from the early days of cinema.

  

The Cinémathèque Francaise was established in 1935.  It moved to its current location in the 12th arrondissement in 2005.  The current location is a Frank Gehry-designed building completed in 1994.

We visited the museum, which is filled all sorts of memorabilia.  Unfortunately and ironically, taking photos in the museum is prohibited.  So, below are a couple of photos from the museum's website that will give you an idea of what the museum contains.  Because Jean-Claude loves film, he was happy to tour the collection.  

We especially liked visiting the Cinematique Francaise because it is located in Frank Gehry's first building in Paris.  (Gehry later designed the amazing Fondation Louis Vuitton museum, which was featured in an earlier blog post.)  

If you have even seen a Gehry-designed building, then you will recognize Gehry's innovative design in the following photographs. 

A journalist for the The New York Times, Herbert Muschamp, gushed about the building when it opened in 1994:

• "The building is a love poem on the relationship between freedom and tradition."
• "Witty, urbane, as affable as Gene Kelly, it shows that American architects can do more than exploit the Old World. They can enrich it."

We are not so sure that Gehry's building is a love poem.  Still, the architecture is uniquely Gehry-esque, which means it is exciting to the eye and the brain.   

Thanks for visiting the Cinematique Francaise with us.