Yet another new face at the City of Architecture and Heritage. After the recent appointment of Julien Bargeton as president, it is the turn of Jean-Roch Bouiller to join the Palais de Chaillot museum as director of collections and the museum of the Cité de l'architecture et du patrimoine. At the head of the Rennes Museum of Fine Arts since 2019, he will take up his new position from September 1. He succeeds Corinne Bélier who joined the Historical Monuments Research Laboratory last November.
Jean-Roch Bouiller (50 years old) pursued a doctorate in contemporary art history at the Sorbonne, conducting a thesis on the writings of the painter André Lhote (1885-1962). After graduating from the National Heritage Institute in 2000, he held the position of curator of historical monuments at the DRAC of Provence-Alpes-Côte-d'Azur for seven years. Between 2008 and 2012, he was in charge of contemporary collections at the Cité de la Céramique de Sèvres, at the time of the merger between the factory and the museum.
In 2011, he joined the Museum of Civilizations of Europe and the Mediterranean (MuCEM) in Marseille as chief curator responsible for contemporary art. For seven years, he contributed to the creation of the museum, to the design of permanent exhibitions and curated several exhibitions such as “I love panoramas” (2015), “Albania, 1207 km east” (2016) and “Or » (2018).
Since 2019, Jean-Roch Bouiller has directed the Rennes Museum of Fine Arts. Keen to open the museum to contemporary creation, he organizes exhibitions such as “The return of light: Soulages, Molnar, Ming…” (2020), “Not cold in the eyes. Vera Molnar” (2021) and “Marcelle Cahn. In search of space” (2023). He also introduced free access to the museum's permanent collections.
An experience that he intends to put to good use at the City of Architecture and Heritage. “I want to open the museum in a big way”, by proceeding “with pragmatism, by listening to the people on site” he declared to Télégramme. “I am returning to my original body, that of the state conservatives.”
The City of Architecture and Heritage (CAPA) is located in one of the two wings of the Palais de Chaillot, located at the Trocadéro in Paris. It was inaugurated in 2007 after a decade of work. Placed under the supervision of the Ministry of Culture, CAPA's mission is to promote the dissemination, awareness and teaching of architecture in France and around the world. Its museum – the first major French architecture museum – brings together three collections over 8,000 m²: two from the Museum of French Monuments (architectural casts and copies of wall paintings and stained glass) and one devoted to modern architecture and contemporary.
