2024-02-01 15:50:10
It is an extremis rescue for the Pavillon des Sources, which had sparked intense heritage controversy in recent weeks. This modest light brick building from the beginning of the 20th century, with an area of 109 square meters and located within the perimeter of the Institut Curie (Paris 5th), was to be destroyed to allow the construction of a new five-story building. of 2,500 m2 dedicated to cancer research.
After the mobilization of personalities and heritage associations, then a moratorium decided by the former Minister of Culture Rima Abdul-Malak, the expected choice of the Minister of Culture fell on Wednesday January 31: the Pavillon des sources will be Ultimately “dismantled and rebuilt stone by stone” a few dozen meters from where he is, said Rachida Dati, in a press release confirming his morning statements on France Inter.
An extension of the current museum
The Pavilion of Sources will be placed “adjoining the museum which will be expanded” et “valued in an ambitious museum project”specified the minister, who was delighted that the scientific project of the Institut Curie could at the same time be “completed”. For the Curie Institute, it was important that the new building be built on site, in the immediate vicinity of its nineteen technological platforms and its hospital, but also other scientific partners, such as the École normale supérieure-PSL (ENS ) or the National School of Chemistry of Paris-PSL. “Thanks to this compromise, the memorial heritage of our illustrious founder (Marie Curie)which we hold so dear, as well as our scientific project of international scope will be able to be deployed together”, welcomed Professor Alain Puisieux, director of the Institut Curie research center.
This compromise solution finally leaves aside what had opposed the Institut Curie and the defenders of heritage, the first considering that the Pavillon des sources did not represent a great heritage interest. This pavilion is not «not an emblematic place in the scientific history of Marie Curie », he indicated at the height of the controversy. The most symbolic space in his eyes being the hangar (destroyed in 1914), where Marie Curie had discovered radium with her husband in 1898, and her “real laboratory” which was located in the pavilion which today houses the Curie Museum, created in 1994. If feminist collectives had engaged in the controversy, expressing outrage on this occasion at the lack of consideration for the memory of women scientists and the « weddings » In general, the Curie Institute had always argued that the Pavillon des sources was only a place of radium reserves in which Marie Curie, like other researchers, occasionally came to obtain supplies.
An additional cost of 5 million euros
Saved and restored at the expense of the Curie Institute, the Pavillon des sources will become a new wing of the Curie Museum, which will pay tribute to the two founders of the Curie Institute, Marie Curie and Claudius Regaud, and will present recent discoveries in the field of fight against cancer.
The additional cost of demolition-reconstruction is significant: 5 million euros for an overall real estate project of 12 million. The operation will also cause the construction site to be delayed by a few months, but “all work should be completed at the beginning of 2026”, said Professor Alain Puisieux. As for the radioactive contamination of the site, it will be “taken into account according to the rules provided for in this type of operation”responds the communications service of the Institut Curie. “This is a question we have already faced for the current museum building.” For the record, the Pavillon des sources was closed in 2018 due to dilapidation and radioactivity on a few points, “however without health issues”had indicated the Institut Curie in the past.
Despite this decision, those who were alarmed by the fate of the Pavilion of Springs remain dissatisfied. Thus Didier Rykner, director of the website La tribune de l’art, is skeptical about the final preservation of the building, a number of historic buildings promised to be ” rescue ” through a “disassembly-reassembly” having never actually been moved, “such as the Eiffel hall in Arles, the Tolbiac bridge or the Texier hotel in Paris”he recalls.
Rachida Dati also indicated that the site would be “classified once integrated into the Curie Museum”. A curious timeline for a provision supposed to provide protection to a building… “The Minister of Culture overruled the district mayor of 7e who had requested the classification »did not fail to react Emmanuel Grégoire, first deputy to the mayor of Paris.
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