Restoring the Hôtel de la Marine

In 2015, the Ministry of the Navy moved from the Hôtel de la Marine in Paris to the new Ministry of Defence site in the south of Paris. The monument was then entrusted to the Centre des monuments nationaux. The aim was torestore the building and take visitors back to the days of the Garde-Meuble de la Couronne, when it was built in the 18th century.

After more than 200 years of occupation of the Hôtel de la Marine by the Ministry and the Naval Staff, the internal organisation of the building and its decor had changed considerably. The Centre des monuments nationaux, which has been entrusted with the management of the monument and its opening to the public, has chosen, wherever possible, to restore the original decor: that of the Garde-Meuble de la Couronne in the 18th century, an exceptional testimony to theexcellence of French architecture and decoration.Restitution", because what we are talking about here is restoring the premises to their original state, that of the construction of the buildings in the 18th century. 

The CMN and its teams of curator-restorers have had the pleasant surprise of discovering the original wall decorations, ceilings and floors beneath the successive additions of the 19th and 20th centuries - an opportunity for visitors to immerse themselves in the unique and exceptional atmosphere of a flat from the Age of Enlightenment. The ceremonial rooms l ining the loggia have been kept as they were designed by the Ministry of the Navy in the mid-19th century.

The first phase of the work involved restoring the building to its original volumes. Over the course of two centuries, the space requirements of the Navy have changed: more offices, installation of lifts, but also the arrival of new technologies such as electricity, telephone and internet.

To save space, some rooms were built over, i.e. an intermediate floor was installed to double the floor area. On the first floor, the former bronze gallery, which opened onto the inner courtyard, was also closed off and placed in a mezzanine to save space.

The first phase of the works therefore removed these additions and restored the building to its original state, both inside and out.

The work on the Hôtel de la Marine is not simply a return to the building's origins. The client wanted a touch of modernity , with a glass roof over the Intendant's Courtyard and a carpet of light over the main courtyard.

The building is thus an example of a fruitful dialogue between the eighteenth and twenty-first centuries.

Thanks to the furniture inventories of the Garde-Meuble, it has been possible to identify most of the furniture and fabrics present in the Hôtel de la Marine in the 18th century. Marc-Antoine Thierry de Ville-d'Avray, intendant of the Garde-Meuble, drew up a general inventory of the institution's collections in 1774, which is still considered a reference today.

What could be more important than the furniture to restore the atmosphere of yesteryear? The Centre des monuments nationaux has acquired two unique pieces of furniture by thecabinetmaker Jean-Henri Riesener: a chest of drawers and a cabinet-style secretary. The first is representative of the style of the king's cabinetmaker; the second, classified as a national treasure, was commissioned by the intendant Pierre-Elisabeth de Fontanieu to furnish his private flats.

Therestoration of the decor, carried out by the Centre des monuments nationaux and its experts, also highlights the curtains, upholstery fabrics and wallpapers, restoring the original atmosphere to the rooms in the intendant's flats and the reception rooms.

The CMN has carried out rigorous work toidentify, research and locate the original furniture and objects.

Thanks to the generous collaboration of major public partners, such as the Mobilier national, the Louvre, the Musée des Arts décoratifs, the Musée national du château de Versailles, the Ministry of the Armed Forces and the Manufacture de Sèvres, many deposits have been made.

Collaboration with the Mobilier national, the forerunner of the Garde-Meubles de la Couronne, led to the deposit of a low bookcase commissioned from Gaudreaus for Louis XV in 1744 and used by Fontanieu for his dining room at the Garde-Meuble.

Riesener enlarged the piece, transforming it into a sideboard with a dumbwaiter mechanism and adding a second piece of furniture with matching decoration. The latter was previously kept at the Élysée Palace. Other pieces of furniture, which were also on the premises in the 18th century, have been deposited with the Mobilier National.