Musée départemental Albert-Kahn

Albert Kahn's project began with a belief that seeing other cultures could encourage understanding between people. The museum in Boulogne-Billancourt preserves that ambition through colour photography, silent film and a garden in which different landscape traditions sit close together. It is a visit with two substantial halves, indoors and out.

The Archives of the Planet and Kengo Kuma’s museum

The Archives of the Planet include around 72,000 colour photographs and a large body of film made between 1909 and 1931. These images record places and people during a period of rapid change, giving the collection a documentary breadth that differs from a conventional art museum. The subject is the world Kahn wanted to make visible, and the choices involved in recording it.

The museum building by Kengo Kuma provides the contemporary setting for that material. Its galleries introduce the archive and the wider project, while the garden makes Kahn's interest in cultural relationships physical. Japanese, English and French garden areas, fruit trees and planted landscapes create a series of contrasting spaces rather than a single repeated view of a bridge.

The gardens and Albert Kahn’s wider project

Those transitions are central to the outdoor visit. A path may move from a more formal arrangement into a different planting structure or waterside scene, changing the scale and the way the eye is directed. The garden is therefore part of the museum's meaning, not only an attractive place to rest after the exhibition.

The exhibition Choisir la paix: Le combat d'Albert Kahn is scheduled through 13 June 2027, connecting photographs, film and archives with Kahn's pursuit of peace. The permanent archive and garden remain the lasting reasons to choose the museum: a record of the wider world gathered around a remarkably personal landscape in western Paris.