Tons of events and a spiffing new website with light boxes on a dark background (hmmm…). One of our favourite places in Paris gets a youthful reboot by looking 150 years into the past. Here are the details…

The Albert Kahn gardens - photo: JasonW

The Albert Kahn museum and gardens have a special place in our heart. They’re unique. We visited the amazing gardens for you last Spring (here) and now that Spring is almost upon us again, it’s something you should keep in mind.

Especially as they are currently celebrating the 150th anniversary of Albert Kahn’s birth with a rich programme of event from 3rd – 28th March 2010 :

- an outdoor exhibition that will take you through the gardens whilst you learn about the man himself,
- a quiz for adults about Albert Kahn,
- 7 guided walks in the gardens with a ‘cultural mediator’ (I think they mean ‘guide’),
- 12 conferences to help you understand ALbert Kahn, his work and his era (with guests from the museum staff and other organisations),
- 24 showings of the BBC series about Albert Kahn, including multiple showing of the nine episodes and even a 10th, unseen episode about Japan,
- 4 showing of the film Albert Kahn in Boulogne-Billancourt,
- 7 other screenings of films made by the museum or in collaboration.

Also, the museum he completely revamped its website (including a small section in English). There’s now a map fo the world that allows you to access the fifty-odd countries photographed or filmed by Kahn’s envoys between 1909 and 1931, with nearly 1,000 autochromes and films on offer. As digitisation continues, a large part of the museum’s collection (72.000 autochromes, the largest collection in the world, and 180,000 metres of silent black and white films, the 2nd largest collection of documentary films in France) will be available online.

The gardens are also well represented on the site. Via a map you can read about their history and see current photos.

The site also requests the help of visitors in adding, completing or correcting the legend of what they call ‘shipwrecked’ photos (or ‘orphaned’, if you prefer). They’ve even made a snazzy film with techno-rock music to relaunch the site. How very hip!

Don’t let that put you off though. The museum is well worth seeing, the current temporary exhibition about Brittany that you told you about here is still on, and the gardens are just amazing.

The Musée Albert Kahn (here) is open every day except Mondays form 11am – 6pm (8pm starting 1st May). Admission is a ridiculous 1.5 euros ! And it’s free for under-12s!

New site: www.albert-kahn.fr

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