Paris. The heritage series of the Pavilion des Sources is experiencing a new turnaround: it will ultimately remain in place, after having been promised destruction, then a movement, stone by stone, of a few meters. It was through a press release issued on April 13 that the Ministry of Culture announced its decision, “after careful consideration”, for the major Institut Curie project, under study since 2022. The Claudius-Regaud building – to which the name of Marie Curie has been attached to avoid memorial controversies – must accommodate the research teams of the “Chemical Biology” laboratory. » from the Institut Curie, a rapidly developing field of cancer research. But no details are given to explain how the pavilion will fit in with the new construction. “The new project presented provides that the Sources pavilion will remain in its original location and will be integrated into a new building dedicated to research called “Marie Curie – Claudius Regaud””the ministry simply said.
An architectural puzzle
The small pavilion is one of three buildings built in the early 1910s to create the Marie Curie Radium Institute. The construction of the new research building on this dense plot of land with a certain heritage value, in the heart of the 5th arrondissement of Paris, has been a headache since the launch of the project. It was first of all the City which amended the first plans of the Ba-So architectural agency, in order to spare a row of plane trees. At the end of 2023, the solution consisting of destroying the Sources pavilion to build the research center created a lively controversy, widely relayed on social networks, forcing the Ministry of Culture to take up the matter.
Shortly after her appointment last January, the Minister of Culture thought she had the solution by proposing dismantling the pavilion, then reassembling it along rue d'Ulm. This proposal is accompanied by a promise of classification as historic monuments, without calendar details. This solution is far from appeasing heritage defenders and poses technical difficulties.
With the pavilion remaining on site, the Ministry of Culture is once again asking the architectural agency to completely review its copy and is delaying the project, the delivery of which was initially estimated in 2023. We wonder how the two buildings will work out. combine, especially since the ministry specifies that the place will be assigned to the Curie Museum to accommodate “a modern museum tour (with) innovative scenography” to pay tribute to Marie Curie and Claudius Regaud.
The Site and Monuments association, which defends the preservation of the Pavilion des Sources, is also vigilant about the co-visibility of the new building with the Pantheon, which is only a hundred meters away.
