Arromanches-les-Bains, France

Paris-based architecture studio Projectiles and landscape architect Emma Blanc have completed the creation of the D-Day Museum in Arromanches-les- Bains, the first museum created in the aftermath of the Second World War, based on the concept of transmitting shared history, as well as remembrance.

Its position makes it an observatory.

From the square and the slope, all five of the museum’s faces are visible and contribute to the diversity of regards focused through it onto the landscape, by offering different framings, in a dialogue with the various scales.

Whilst highlighting the museum, the forecourt is an ideal space for contemplating the spectacle of the tide as it reveals the vestiges from the stands.

To the east, a new wooded public space is created in relation to the wedge. It is integrated both in complementarity and continuity with the Place du 6 juin 1944.

The additional stands complete the arrangement.

The project is characterized by its relation to the site, its simple volumetry, and its constructive rigor.

It is a horizon museum whose many vistas from the interior towards the exterior (and conversely) are of the utmost importance.

On the ground floor, the public space, the square, and the street extend into the museum.

On the first floor, on the level of the collections, cards, and objects dialogue with the landscape.

Upon reaching the roof, structures, façades, gallery walls, and projections disappear.  

The confrontation with the site is total.

An awning with a depth of 4 meters and a height of 8 meters stretches across the entire museum.

Prefabricated light-colored concrete columns compose the building’s periphery according to differentiated patterns.

Their implementation echoes the engineering genius of the modules forming the artificial port of Mulberry B. Great glazed frames fill in the concrete exoskeleton.

A great longitudinal fracture (16 meters long and 4 meters wide) structures the plan of each level.

Their dimensions present the same rapport of proportions as the great Phoenix caissons.

A footbridge, which visitors discover upon entering the museum’s display circuit, seems to be floating in this volume.

The prefabricated concrete structure continues within the museum where 12-meter transversal beams are spaced every 2 meters, from the fracture to the columns of the north and south façades.

Straddling land and sea, between the forecourt, and the museum’s interior, the path of the visit begins at the Place du 6 juin 1944 and the shoreline promenade.

The exhibition galleries gradually open towards the exterior, following a chronological and thematic path: from the outbreak of the war up to the liberation.

On the ground floor, visitors enter a multi-level room, with a muffled atmosphere in which an introductory film contextualizing the museum’s purpose is screened.

The visit continues on the first floor with a direct visual link to the maritime horizon and the vestiges of Mulberry B. 

Project: D-Day Museum
Architects: Projectiles
Lead Architects: Hervé Bouttet, Reza Azard, and Daniel Mészáros
Landscape Architects: Emma Blanc
Client: SHEMA City of Arromanches-Les-Bains
Photographs: Courtesy of the Architects