Toulouse (Haute-Garonne). Disasters keep coming for the Georges-Labit Museum. During the passage of storm Nils, on the night of February 11 to 12, violent gusts of wind caused a large tree to fall on the roof of the small Toulouse museum. Result: damage to its roof, broken tiles and a deteriorated frame.
The beautiful Moorish-inspired architecture of the building, designed by the architect Jules Calbairac (1857-1935), having been damaged, the town hall services hastened to cover the roof to protect the interior while avoiding any infiltration. The collections were out of danger: they had left the premises since the museum closed three years ago. The establishment, founded in 1893 by the traveler Georges Labit (1862-1899), a great enthusiast of ethnology, until then brought together a rich collection of oriental art and Egyptian antiquities. These have since been transferred to the Saint-Raymond Museum, other pieces returned to the Guimet Museum in Paris, and the rest stored in municipal reserves.
A weakened building
But another natural hazard also explains why the museum was emptied of its collections and has remained closed ever since. In 2020, a first diagnosis had already revealed the defective state of the structure. It was during the summer of 2022, in the middle of a heatwave, that the situation worsened. The intense heat accentuated the fragility of the building, built on very clayey soil and close to the Canal du Midi. Cracks then appeared on the floor and on the load-bearing beams of the basement which support the ground floor. Forced to close immediately, the museum only benefited from small emergency consolidation works. In 2024, a new diagnosis reveals an alarming observation: the floor threatens to collapse, the beams no longer ensuring their supporting function. Added to this is the dilapidated technical installations on the site. Impossible, therefore, to reopen to the public without carrying out a much larger renovation.
Since then, the case seems to have come to a standstill. Only a few one-off interventions have been undertaken: accessibility work with the creation of access ramps, redoing of signage, garden lighting, markings and some operations inside the library. The heart of the construction site has been postponed sine die. Already in 2024, the municipality, owner of the museum since 1912, estimated that the 8 million euros necessary for the work could not be included in the budget, ensuring that the envelope would be subject to the next multi-year investment plan 2027-2032. With this new twist of fate, the bill is likely to increase and the closure is set to last.
