Mundaneum, Musée mondial, Geneva, Switzerland, 1929
Mundaneum, Musée mondial, Geneva, Switzerland, 1929: A tripartite museum: three naves extending parallel side by side, with no partition wall separating them. In one nave human works, those which tradition, the piety of remembrance or archeology have brought to us here; in the adjacent nave all the documents which will fix time and history at a particular moment, made visual by graphic art, scientific reconstructions, etc. And finally the third nave with all that which shows us what a particular place has to offer, its various conditions, its natural and artificial products, etc. © FLC/ADAGP
Site plan for the first version, note the "Boîte à miracles"
Site plan for the first version, note the "Boîte à miracles" © FLC/ADAGP
Le Corbusier, Musée, Ahmedabad, India, 1951, Plans
Le Corbusier, Musée, Ahmedabad, India, 1951, Plans
Le Corbusier, Musée, Ahmedabad, India, 1951
Le Corbusier, Musée, Ahmedabad, India, 1951 © FLC/ADAGP

The museum is bad because it does not tell the whole story. It misleads, it dissimulates, it deludes. It is a liar.1

  • 1. Le Corbusier quoted in Calum Storrie, The Delirious Museum: A Journey from the Louvre to Las Vegas, London: I.B. Tauris, 2006.