The Hauts-de-France regional chamber of accounts draws up a contrasting assessment of the three “museums of France” collections in Amiens metropolis, containing more than 70,000 works. The Picardie Museum, the only establishment open to the public, concentrates the good results. Reopened in March 2020 after a renovation costing 31.1 million euros – including nearly 20 million borne by the city -, it welcomed 114,000 visitors in 2024. Daily attendance has increased by 52% since 2022.
The chamber welcomes a pricing policy favorable to access for the greatest number of people. Of the 175,000 freebies granted between 2020 and 2024, almost half concerned those under 26. The school population reached 18,892 students in 2024. More than 350 mediation actions were proposed that year. The acquisition policy is considered “thrifty”, some would say insufficient: 19 purchases between 2019 and 2024, to which are added regular restorations.
Facade of the Picardie Museum with the redeveloped Cour d’Honneur.
© Photo Alice Sidoli / Musée de Picardie.
The weaknesses primarily concern strategy. Since January 2025, the Picardie Museum no longer has a valid scientific and cultural project (PSC); the previous one was unfinished, without objectives or indicators. The Berny hotel and the natural history museum did not have any during the controlled period. The chamber therefore sends a reminder of the law for each of the three museums.
Collection management is more worrying. The works are distributed in ten reserves on seven sites, the majority of which are not suitable for their conservation. The safeguarding plan only covers the Musée de Picardie. Its inventory, shared between a paper register and an editable Excel file, does not respect the obligation of a unique and tamper-proof document; the verifications remain very incomplete.
Financial readability is also insufficient, due to lack of individualized accounting. The chamber estimates the operating cost of the Picardie Museum at 5.1 million euros in 2024, or fifteen times its 330,000 euros in revenue.
Berny’s hotel has been closed since 2006 for security reasons. After the works were moved, work on the enclosure and the roof was carried out in 2008-2009, then emergency interventions had to deal with a spread of dry rot; the building remains degraded. Three renovation scenarios, estimated in 2011 at between 8.5 and 9.3 million euros excluding taxes, were not arbitrated, priority having been given to the Musée de Picardie. Amiens Métropole now conditions its reopening on the definition of a new museum project, technical and regulatory requirements as well as obtaining co-financing; no work schedule has yet been decided, even if a project has been announced for the mandate opening in 2026.
The natural history museum is not closed following a disaster or upgrading: it has not had its own building since 1970, when the change of ownership of the Bouctot-Vagniez hotel led to its collections being put back into storage. A room was dedicated to him at the Musée de Picardie from 1980 to 1986; since 2020, certain specimens have been shown occasionally in exhibitions or within the latter’s itinerary. No autonomous reopening project or deadline is currently formalized; its prospects depend on a scientific and cultural project still to be drafted and, for the conservation of funds, decisions on a possible shared center estimated at 50 million euros.
The chamber’s control does not cover the entire Amiens museum and artistic landscape. The Maison de Jules Verne, the Frac Picardie, the Galerie Totem, the Safran art center, the Artothèque d’Amiens Métropole and the visual arts spaces of the Maison de la Culture remain outside the audited scope. To these places are added, in the heritage field, the Architecture and Heritage Interpretation Center and the Archaeological Garden of Saint-Acheul.
