This article needs additional citations for verification .(December 2015) |
Institut du Monde Arabe معهد العالم العربي | |
Established | 30 November 1987 |
---|---|
Location | 1 Rue des Fossés Saint-Bernard, 75005 Paris, France |
Type | foreign cultural institute |
Collections | Islamic Art |
Visitors | 411,715 (2017) |
Director | Mojeb Al Zahrani |
President | Jack Lang |
Public transit access | |
Website | imarabe |
The Institut du Monde Arabe (IMA) French for Arab World Institute, is an organisation founded in Paris in 1980 by France with 18 Arab countries to research and disseminate information about the Arab world and its cultural and spiritual values. The Institute was established as a result of a perceived lack of representation for the Arab world in France, and seeks to provide a secular location for the promotion of Arab civilization, art, knowledge, and aesthetics. [1] Housed within the institution are a museum, library, auditorium, restaurant, offices and meeting rooms.
The AWI is located in a building known as the Institut du Monde Arabe, the same name as the institute, on Rue des Fossés Saint Bernard in the 5th arrondissement of Paris, France. [2] Originally, the project was conceived in 1973 by President Valéry Giscard d'Estaing. [1] The museum was constructed between 1981 and 1987 under the presidency of French President Francois Mitterrand as part of his urban development series entitled, the "Grands Projets." [1] The Institute promotes cooperation and exchanges between France and the Arab nations, particularly in the areas of science and technology, contributing to the understanding between the Arab world and Europe. Libya joined the institute in 1984. The IMA was inaugurated on November 30, 1987 by President Mitterrand. [3]
The IMA is a member of the Forum of Foreign Cultural Institutes in Paris and Exchanges and Radio Productions (EPRA). It is sometimes nicknamed the “Arab Beaubourg”, in reference to the national center of art and culture Georges-Pompidou, known as the Beaubourg center. [4]
In 2016, he opened a branch in Tourcoing.
The director of the institute is Mojeb al-Zahrani.
The building was constructed from 1981 to 1987 and has floor space of 181,850 square feet (16,894 m2). The Architecture-Studio together with Jean Nouvel, won the 1981 design competition. [5] This project is a result of funds from both the League of Arab States and the French government, with the cost of the building totaling around €230,000,000. [6] The building acts as a buffer zone between the Jussieu Campus of Pierre and Marie Curie University (Paris VI), built in large rationalist urban blocks, and the Seine. The river façade follows the curve of the waterway, reducing the hardness of a rectangular grid and offering an inviting view from the Sully Bridge. At the same time the building appears to fold itself back in the direction of the Saint-Germain-des-Prés district.
In contrast to the curved surface on the river side, the southwest façade is an uncompromisingly rectangular glass-clad curtain wall. It faces a large square public space that opens in the direction of the Île de la Cité and Notre Dame. Visible behind the glass wall, a metallic screen unfolds with moving geometric motifs. The motifs are actually 240 photo-sensitive motor-controlled apertures, or shutters, which act as a sophisticated brise soleil that automatically opens and closes to control the amount of light and heat entering the building from the sun. The mechanism creates interior spaces with filtered light — an effect often used in Islamic architecture with its climate-oriented strategies. The innovative use of technology and success of the building's design catapulted Nouvel to fame and is one of the cultural reference points of Paris.
The building was the recipient of the 1989 Aga Khan Award for Architectural Excellence. Jury members included historian Oleg Grabar. [6]
Within the museum are objects from the Arab world ranging from before Islam through into the twentieth century. One of the main initiatives within the museum is the inclusion of special exhibitions.
Michel Houellebecq sets a pivotal scene in his novel Submission at a reception held in the Institute's rooftop restaurant and terrace. [9]
In 2018, the Arab World Institute won the Cultural Personality of the Year from the Sheikh Zayed Book Award. [10]
IMA or Ima may refer to:
Brise soleil, sometimes brise-soleil, is an architectural feature of a building that reduces heat gain within that building by deflecting sunlight. The system allows low-level sun to enter a building in the mornings, evenings and during winter but cuts out direct light during summer.
The Musée du Quai Branly – Jacques Chirac, located in Paris, France, is a museum designed by French architect Jean Nouvel to feature the indigenous art and cultures of Africa, Asia, Oceania, and the Americas. The museum collection comprises more than a million objects, of which 3,500 are on display at any given time, in both permanent and temporary thematic exhibits. A selection of objects from the museum is also displayed in the Pavillon des Sessions of the Louvre.
The Prix d'architecture de l'Équerre d'argent is a French architecture award. This prize was launched in 1960 by "Architecture Française" magazine and its director Michel Bourdeau.
Henry Laurens is a French historian and author of several histories and studies about the Arab-Muslim world. He is Professor and Chair of History of the Contemporary Arab world at the Collège de France, Paris.
Jean Nouvel is a French architect. Nouvel studied at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris and was a founding member of Mars 1976 and Syndicat de l'Architecture, France’s first labor union for architects. He has obtained a number of prestigious distinctions over the course of his career, including the Aga Khan Award for Architecture, the Wolf Prize in Arts in 2005 and the Pritzker Prize in 2008. A number of museums and architectural centres have presented retrospectives of his work.
Youssef Nabil was born on the 6th of November 1972. He is an Egyptian artist and photographer. Youssef Nabil began his photography career in 1992.
The Grands Projets of François Mitterrand was an architectural programme to provide modern monuments in Paris, the city of monuments, symbolising France's role in art, politics and the economy at the end of the 20th century. The programme was initiated by François Mitterrand, the 21st President of France, while he was in office. Mitterrand viewed the civic building projects, estimated at the time to cost the Government of France 15.7 billion French francs, both as a revitalisation of the city, as well as contemporary architecture promoted by Socialist Party politics. The scale of the project and its ambitious nature was compared to the major building schemes of Louis XIV.
Huguette Caland was a Lebanese painter, sculptor and fashion designer known for her erotic abstract paintings and body landscapes. Based out of Los Angeles, her art was displayed in numerous exhibitions and museums around the world.
Nadim Asfar is a French-Lebanese photographer and filmmaker. He currently lives and works between Paris and Beirut. He studied cinematography at the Académie Libanaise des Beaux-Arts ALBA Beirut and then photography at the École Nationale Supérieure Louis Lumière (Paris) before engaging in the theory of arts and languages at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales.
ShaficAbboud was a Lebanese painter. He studied at the Académie Libanaise des Beaux-Arts ALBA and left to Paris in 1947. Although he spent most of his life in France, he is considered as one of the most influential Lebanese artists of the 20th century.
Gilbert Hage is a Lebanese photographer. He studied at the Université Saint-Esprit de Kaslik and teaches there since 1990. He also teaches at the Académie Libanaise des Beaux-Arts ALBA. He sometimes collaborates with curator and researcher Ghada Waked, his wife, and is co-publisher and co-editor, with Jalal Toufic, of Underexposed Books.
Nadim Karam ; is a multidisciplinary Lebanese artist and architect who fuses his artistic output with his background in architecture to create large-scale urban art projects in different cities of the world. He uses his vocabulary of forms in urban settings to narrate stories and evoke collective memory with a very particular whimsical, often absurdist approach; seeking to 'create moments of dreams' in different cities of the world.
Mahmoud Obaidi is an Iraqi-Canadian artist whose work has been exhibited in museums and galleries around the world.
The Prix du roman arabe of the "Council of Arab Ambassadors" is a French literary award established in 2008.
Warrior by a Tomb, Arab by a Tomb or The Arab by the Tomb is an 1838 oil-on-canvas painting by the French artist Eugène Delacroix, now in the Hiroshima Museum of Art. It was inspired by his trip to Morocco as an official painter, but was refused by the jury of the Paris Salon.
The Grand Louvre refers to the decade-long project initiated by French President François Mitterrand in 1981 of expanding and remodeling the Louvre – both the building and the museum – by moving the French Finance Ministry, which had been located in the Louvre's northern wing since 1871, to a different location. The centerpiece of the Grand Louvre is the Louvre Pyramid designed by Chinese-American architect I. M. Pei, which was also the project's most controversial component. The Grand Louvre was substantially completed in the late 1990s, even though its last elements were only finalized in the 2010s.
Mohamed El Aziz Ben Achour is a Tunisian politician and historian born on 5 January 1951; he specializes in urban, social and cultural history of modern Tunisia and the Islamic civilization. He was the Minister of Culture some time between 2004 and 2008, and later Director-General of the Arab League Educational, Cultural and Scientific Organization (ALECSO) some time between 2009 and 2013.
Mona Khazindar is a Saudi-American art historian and curator. She was the Director General of the Institut du Monde Arabe from 2011 to 2014.