Jean-Marie Tjibaou Cultural Centre — museum
Fanny Schertzer · CC BY-SA 3.0

Jean-Marie Tjibaou Cultural Centre

Centre culturel Tjibaou

  • 2 min read
  • 22.256° S 166.482° E

Interesting facts

  • The iroko timber of the pavilions was imported from Africa, chosen because it resists insects, fungi and mould.
  • The frames of all the pavilions were prefabricated in France and then assembled on the site in New Caledonia.
  • Unlike a traditional Kanak great hut, the pavilions have no central pillar, a change that freed interior space and, as wind-tunnel tests confirmed, improved ventilation.
  • Each of the ten pavilions is a different size, although all share the same upright, shell-like form.
  • The ridge where the centre stands had already hosted Melanesia 2000, the 1975 festival of Kanak culture regarded as a forerunner of the project.
  • The Kanak cultural agency wanted the centre in the heart of Nouméa, but it was given land on the Tina Peninsula about 8 km from the old town.
  • The artists' studios were deliberately given an unfinished look, a reminder of Tjibaou's belief that Kanak culture is still evolving.
  • Besides timber and steel, the building materials include coral, concrete, cast aluminium, glass and tree bark.
  • A fund of contemporary Kanak and Oceanian art created in 1995 holds more than 600 works from New Caledonia, Australia and the Pacific Islands.
  • One pavilion, Case Mâlep, is devoted to the life and work of Jean-Marie Tjibaou himself.

Why it is worth it

Along a wooded ridge on the Tina Peninsula, ten tall curved shells of timber rise above the pines like half-finished huts, their slatted ribs open to the sky. They are the pavilions of the Tjibaou Cultural Centre, designed by Renzo Piano as a home for Kanak culture, the indigenous culture of New Caledonia. The largest stands 28 metres high. From the lagoon side they look calm and closed; on the side facing the ocean wind their staves catch the air, and the light falling through them throws constantly shifting stripes of shadow.

The centre is named after Jean-Marie Tjibaou, the Kanak independence leader assassinated in 1989, who had argued for an institution to protect and promote Kanak languages, arts and heritage. After his death the French state took up the idea; Piano won the design competition in 1991, construction ran from 1993, and the centre opened in 1998. Its story is bound up with New Caledonia's long debate over its relationship with France, and it was conceived from the outset as a political symbol as much as a museum.

Piano and his team, working with the anthropologist Alban Bensa, borrowed the logic of a Kanak village rather than its surface. Traditional houses were round, conical and impermanent, built of wood and thatch and arranged along a tree-lined alley ending at the chief's great hut. Here the pavilions, called cases, are grouped into three clusters along a curving 250-metre walkway, each with one tall case echoing the great hut. They are built of laminated iroko timber, steel and aluminium; the outer ribs are designed to look woven, and computer-controlled louvres at their base open and close with the wind to ventilate the interiors. A landscaped path of Norfolk Island and column pines, coconut palms, taro and yam gardens leads the visitor in, much as one would approach a village. The cases house the permanent display of Kanak art and history, temporary exhibitions, a 400-seat auditorium and an open-air stage.

Nouméa, the capital of New Caledonia, sits on a peninsula in the south-west of Grande Terre, facing one of the largest coral lagoons in the world.

Getting there

The centre is on the Tina Peninsula, about 8 km north-east of the historic centre of Nouméa. Nouméa Magenta Airport (GEA), which handles flights within New Caledonia, is about 1 km away. International flights arrive at La Tontouta International Airport (NOU) in Païta, around 37 km north-west of Nouméa.

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From the encyclopaedia

The Tjibaou Cultural Centre, on the narrow Tina Peninsula, approximately 8 kilometres (5.0 mi) northeast of the historic centre of Nouméa, the capital of New Caledonia, celebrates the vernacular Kanak culture, the indigenous culture of New Caledonia, amidst much political controversy over the independent status sought by some Kanaks from French rule. It opened in June 1998 and was designed by Italian architect Renzo Piano and named after Jean-Marie Tjibaou, the leader of the independence movement who was assassinated in 1989 and had a vision of establishing a cultural centre which blended the linguistic and artistic heritage of the Kanak people.

Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

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