A new museum is always an event, especially when the museum in question is the already legendary Musée du Quai Branly, built in the heart of Paris to showcase the arts and civilisations of Africa, Asia, Oceania and the Americas.

Featuring magnificent collections that have been acclaimed as treasures of the non-European world, the new museum constitutes not one, but several major events, both from a museological and a historical perspective.

Long ignored and unappreciated, or restrictively labelled as curiosities, these “faraway” non-Western cultures will be exhibited over a vast area that highlights “the full extent of their depth and subtlety” by fostering a lasting dialogue between individuals and cultures.

Last but not least, the new museum is also hailed as an architectural masterpiece, designed by France’s most ubiquitous architect Jean Nouvel. Consisting of a spectacular group of buildings located in a 40,000-square-metre area, the new venue is “a museum in a forest” of trees and greenery.

Already defined as “un muséee du regard sur l’Autre” (“a museum for viewing the Other”), the Musée du Quai Branly was born of the resolve of French President Jacques Chirac to “give arts and civilisations that have been neglected for far too long their rightful place”, with the aspiration that the museum will also become “an instrument of peace that bears witness to the equal dignity of all cultures and individuals”.

The Musée du Quai Branly was designed as a new type of cultural institution with a dual purpose: to conserve and exhibit the collections, and to stimulate research and instruction. The museum will also run a programme of performing arts events – theatre, dance and music – designed to resonate with the wide range of exhibits on display. This will enhance the site’s role as a convivial “cultural city” of non-Western arts showcasing non-European populations: an area where cultures, civilisations and individuals meet and mingle.