The Cité de l’architecture & du patrimoine and the Albert-Kahn departmental museum, property of the Département des Hauts-de-Seine, present an exhibition which explores, through images, the city of Paris, from the “Belle Epoque” to the end of the 1930s.
Based on autochromes and films taken by the operators of the Archives de la Planète, the exhibition gives us the portrait of a city revealing the shift from a timeless capital towards a metropolis eager for progress and turned towards the future.
It offers a poetic walk through a city torn between the preservation of its medieval past and the advent of a modern capital.
Resulting from a fruitful partnership between the Albert-Kahn departmental museum and the Cité de l’architecture & du patrimoine, the exhibition offers a renewed vision of Paris, thanks to a unique collection of images, atypical within the visual production of the early 20th century: the autochromes – first industrial colour photography process – and black and white films taken by the operators of the Archives de la Planète.
This vast visual documentary undertaking was imagined by Albert Kahn (1860-1940), banker, patron and pacifist. His ambition was “to establish a report on humanity seized live at the critical hour of changes both profound and inevitable”, to quote the geographer Jean Brunhes (1869-1930), scientific director of the project.
With almost 5000 autochromes and 90000 meters of film, the “Paris” collection of the Archives de la Planète is one of the most important photographic and cinematographic archives from the early 20th century dedicated to the capital. Having remained relatively confidential in its time and ever since, it’s presentation in the exhibition Paris 1910-1937. Promenades through the Albert- Kahn collections is all the more exceptional.
The exhibition shows the intimate connections of this collection with the great urban issues which accompanied the transformation of the capital into a modern city, at the origin of the Grand Paris (Greater Paris). Invited to wander poetically through the city of lights, the visitor is plunged into an immersive experience at the heart of the image; the exhibition reveals the progressive shift of the city from a timeless capital, increasingly concerned with preservation of its heritage, towards a metropole of the future.
Paris 1910-1937
Promenades through the Albert-Kahn Collections
September 16th, 2020 – January 11th, 2021
Cité de l’Architecture & du Patrimoine
Palais de Chaillot
Exhibition
Full price : 9€ / Reduced price : 6€
1, place du Trocadéro, Paris 16e
Undergroung Trocadéro / Iéna
Open every day from 11am to 7pm, except on Tuesday.
Night opening on Thursday until 9pm
