Completed in 2006, the Musée du Quai Branly (Quai Branly Museum) in Paris appears to be a wild, disorganized jumble of colorful boxes. To add to the sense of confusion, a glass wall blurs the boundary between the outer streetscape and the inner garden. Passersby cannot distinguish between reflections of trees or blurred images beyond the wall.

Inside, architect Jean Nouvel plays architectural tricks to highlight the museum's diverse collections.

Concealed light sources, invisible showcases, spiral ramps, shifting ceiling heights, and changing colors combine to ease the transition between periods and cultures.

About Musée du Quai Branly

Other Name: Musée des Arts Premiers
Timeline: 1999: Project submitted to competition and winner announced; 2000-2002: Studies and consultation; 2002-2006: Building (excluding special foundations)
Foundation: caisson
Façade: dark red curtain wall of aluminum and wood
Style:deconstructivism

In the Words of Jean Nouvel:

"Its architecture must challenge our current Western creative expressions. Away, then, with the structures, mechanical systems, with curtain walls, with emergency staircases, parapets, false ceilings, projectors, pedestals, showcases. If their functions must be retained, they must disappear from our view and our consciousness, vanish before the sacred objects so we may enter into communion with them....The resulting architecture has an unexpected character....windows are very large and very transparent, and often printed with huge photographs; tall randomly-placed pillars could be mistaken for trees or totems; the wooden sunscreens support photovoltaic cells.

The means are unimportant—it is the results that count: what is solid seems to disappear, giving the impression that the museum is a simple façade-less shelter in the middle of a wood."

^{Sources: Musée du Quai Branly, EMPORIS; Projects, Quai Branly Museum, Paris, France, 1999-2006, Ateliers Jean Nouvel website [accessed April 14, 2014]}