PARIS, FRANCE.- On June 23, French President Jacques Chirac will inaugurate a new museum. The Musee du Quai Branly was designed by Jean Nouvel, the architect of the Institut du Monde Arabe and the Cartier Foundation in Paris, the building, in warm colors and partly covered with wood, will look like a long footbridge set in the midst of trees. Hidden from view by dense vegetation and protected from the traffic by a silk-screened glass wall, it will reveal itself gradually to visitors who come to discover it.

The architect designed the building with the collections in mind, adapting the volumes to the future exhibits. Glass walls will replace showcases : from the inside, the effects of transparency and the natural backdrop formed by trees will allow the eye to roam freely. Hanging "boxes", clearly visible from the outside, will immerse visitors in the identity of a people or a culture by presenting works of the same origin together.

In addition to the galleries for the permanent collections, consisting of plateau of flexible forms, and areas reserved for temporary exhibitions, the building will also house extensive reserves open to researchers, a multimedia library, and an auditorium, as well as lecture and meeting rooms. A transparent column will display musical instruments and other objects from the reserves related to this theme. In summer, the auditorium will open onto an open-air theatre.

The garden - Designed by Gilles Clément, the garden, covering an area of 18 000 m2, will encircle the architecture, giving an impression of luxuriant vegetation and creating a natural setting for the collections.

With its lanes, hillocks, paths paved with pebbles sculpted by torrents, pools to inspire meditation and reverie, and the open-air amphitheatre for shows, lectures and concerts, this latest addition to the gardens of Paris will become a meeting place for people from all backgrounds. It will be a campus for students, a recreation ground for children, an attraction for tourists from all over the world and a favorite haunt for friends of the museum regularly participating in events organized in this haven of nature and culture.

To the north, the garden is planted with standard trees (oaks and maples). To the south, all along the Rue de l'Université and in continuation of the garden belonging to the President of the Republic, there are dense clusters of vegetation (magnolias and cherry trees).

Under the museum gallery set on piles, the garden is planted with graminaceous undergrowth. The garden has nearly 200 trees and about 30 different plant varieties. The main species are : moss-capped oak, sessile oak, sugar maple, silver maple, wisteria, rambler rose, giant Chinese creeper, wild clematis, pink clematis, yellow clematis, copper, bark cherry tree, gold-bark cherry tree, magnolia.

The musée du Quai Branly will occupy an exceptional site on the banks of the Seine, under the shade of the Eiffel Tower. It will stand in the heart of a cluster of Parisian museums, near the Louvre and the Musée d'Orsay, and a few minutes away from the Centre Georges Pompidou, the Grand and Petit Palais, the Palais de Tokyo and the Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris. The arts and civilizations of Africa, Oceania, Asia and the Americas will thus be at the centre of the historic and artistic circuit of the city.