Fearing a Big Flood, Paris Moves Art (original) (raw)
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- Feb. 19, 2003
In the largest relocation of artworks in France since World War II, museums here have begun evacuating about 100,000 paintings, drawings, statues, sculptures, books and other valuable objects from underground storage rooms that would be expected to flood if the River Seine were to rise to or beyond the record level of 28 feet, reached in 1910.
The decision to move this art to an undisclosed location north of Paris followed the floods that swept Central Europe last summer, damaging museums and other cultural institutions, notably in Dresden, Germany, and in Prague. Although French art collections were not seriously affected by the 1910 floods, the French government concluded that Paris museums were more vulnerable today.
In 1910 many museums did not have their basements packed with art objects as they do now.
Some, like the Musée d'Orsay, did not even exist. At that time, however, the museum building was a railroad station, the Gare d'Orsay, and it was flooded. ''In 1910 this space was completely submerged,'' said Jean-Jacques Aillagon, the French culture minister, who stood on the ground floor of the Musée d'Orsay when he announced last week that the transfer had begun. ''The threat is real.''
Along with the Musée d'Orsay, which houses the principal collection of 19th-century art in France, many artworks are also being moved from the Louvre, the National School of Fine Arts, the Central Union of Decorative Arts, the Georges Pompidou Center, the Modern Art Museum of the City of Paris, the Carnavalet Museum and several libraries. Government officials estimated that 600 truckloads of art would be moved in the coming weeks.
In some cases, like at the Musée d'Orsay and the Louvre, the immediate threat comes from the possible overflowing of the Seine. In others, like the Pompidou Center, the main danger is posed by rising groundwater and flooding of underground drainage and sewage canals.
The Pompidou Center, which gained experience in moving its collection when it was closed for renovation in 1997 and 1998, has already transferred about 3,000 paintings, drawings and sculptures. The government has assured the museums that they will have 72 hours' warning of a possible flood by the Seine. As a result, several museums have decided to move only those artworks too heavy or cumbersome to carry to higher floors within that period. In the case of stone and bronze statues considered impractical to move, the Louvre has stocked protective plastic wrapping.
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