Paris's Jewel-like Orangerie, Home to Monet's Waterlilies, Reopens, Polished and Renovated
While the Orangerie museum was rebuilt around them for six years, Monet's waterlily paintings, too large to move, had to remain in place in the oval rooms built for them in 1927.
Published: May 16, 2006
PARIS,
May 14 — Over the last six years, as the Musée de l'Orangerie underwent
a $36 million renovation and expansion, its most valued treasure, the
eight tranquil paintings of Monet's large-format waterlily series,
remained trapped inside a noisy and muddy building site.
Ed Alcock for The New York Times
The waterlilies at the Orangerie are some of Monet's most abstract.
There was no alternative.
While the museum's Walter-Guillaume collection of Impressionist
paintings traveled the world, the waterlilies could not be detached
from the walls where they were installed in 1927, one year after
Monet's death. Construction — and demolition — had to take place around
them.
To protect the paintings from water, heat, dust and
vibrations, they were sealed inside reinforced boxes, each attached to
an alarm system. Even so, "On one or two occasions, because of
vibrations, the waterlilies began screaming, and the workers had to
drop tools," noted Olivier Brochet, the project's chief architect.
