For the Georges-Labit Museum in Toulouse, the decision taken in the Salle des Illustres du Capitole was likely to reassure its future. Tuesday October 20, Mayor Jean-Luc Moudenc announced that 4 million euros would be devoted to the renovation of the neo-Moorish villa housing Toulouse’s collections of Asian art in the next multi-annual investment plan (PPI) 2027-2032. The total cost of the operation is currently estimated at 8.6 million euros.
Weaknesses were detected in 2020, before the heatwave of 2022 worsened the cracks affecting the basement’s load-bearing beams and floors. The passage of storm Nils, on the night of February 11 to 12, 2026, further damaged the building: a tree fell on its roof, requiring protection and covering work. The decision of the mayor of Toulouse is a relief for the Association of Friends of the Museum which, for several years, has been demanding that work be undertaken on the building.
To supplement its own investment, the town hall plans to request public funding from the State, the Region and the Department, as well as to call on patrons. Even if the budget is finalized, several stages will have to precede the start of the project, such as the drafting of a scientific and cultural project.
If its site is inaccessible, the Labit Museum tries to maintain the exhibition of its works. His Egyptian collections of Coptic objects were transferred to the Saint-Raymond Museum in Toulouse from 2023, while the pieces from the Guimet Museum, of which he was the custodian, were returned to Paris. Until the end of March 2027, the Massey Museum in Tarbes is presenting 166 works from the Labit Museum in the exhibition “Asia in Heritage”, and a Japanese cabinet from the end of the 16th century has been loaned to the Paul-Dupuy Museum in Toulouse. But the rest of its collections are stored in municipal reserves, inaccessible to the public.
Founded in 1893 by Georges Labit (1862-1899), a traveler and collector passionate about ethnology and the history of religions, the museum preserves an important collection of Asian arts, enriched over the 20th century by acquisitions, donations and deposits. Georges Labit notably brought back from his trips to Japan and China numerous objects intended for his collection. On the death of his father, Antoine Labit, in 1912, the museum was bequeathed to the City of Toulouse, which accepted the bequest in 1919.
The villa was designed specifically to accommodate the donation by the Toulouse architect Jules Calbairac. In an eclectic orientalist style, the facade is inspired by several trends in Islamic architecture, which we find in particular in the horseshoe arches, which recall the iwans of Persian mosques, and in the geometric Koranic decorations of the colored earthenware tiles. Since December 2021, its facades and roofs, as well as several elements of its garden and its outbuildings, have been registered as historic monuments.
