Musée du Quai Branly - Jacques Chirac

Art of Africa, Asia, Oceania and the Americas behind a living wall

Area 7th arrondissement
Type Museum
Time needed 2h

The Musée du quai Branly - Jacques Chirac, on the Left Bank between the Eiffel Tower and the Pont de l'Alma, holds the French national collections of art from Africa, Asia, Oceania and the Americas, opened in 2006 in a Jean Nouvel building raised on stilts above a garden. Its river front carries a living wall of planting by Patrick Blanc. Around 3,500 objects are shown at a time out of a collection of several hundred thousand. Two hours.

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Getting there

RER C to Pont de l'Alma leaves you two minutes from the entrance and is about 15 minutes from Châtelet-Les Halles. Métro 9 to Alma-Marceau means crossing the Pont de l'Alma on foot, five minutes, and Métro 6 to Bir-Hakeim or Métro 8 to École Militaire are both a 10 to 15 minute walk. Bus 42, 63, 80 and 92 all stop on the quai outside. In summer the Batobus calls at the Tour Eiffel stop, a short walk upstream.

What you see

You enter through the garden under the building and go up a long curving white ramp, lit low, which drops you at the top of a single continuous plateau rather than a sequence of rooms. The route runs Oceania, Asia, Africa, Americas, with no walls between them: Pacific canoes and malagan carvings, Asian textiles and shadow puppets, Dogon and Fang sculpture from West and Central Africa, Plains Indian garments and Andean featherwork. Glass boxes project out along the north side with themed displays, and the mezzanine level above carries temporary exhibitions. The upper-floor restaurant has one of the closest unobstructed views of the Eiffel Tower in the city, and the garden below is free to walk.

What to pair it with

The Eiffel Tower is a ten-minute walk upstream, the Palais de Tokyo and Musée d'Art Moderne de Paris are across the Pont de l'Alma, and the Musée Rodin and Les Invalides are a short walk or one bus east.

When to go

Late afternoon on a weekday is the calmest, and the museum has late openings on some evenings, which is the best time to come. Weekends and school holidays fill it up, and the Eiffel Tower crowds spill along the quai all day in summer. The low interior lighting makes the season largely irrelevant inside. It closes one day a week, so check before you go.

What is hard about it

The deliberately dim lighting and dark palette make labels hard to read and the layout hard to orient in; many visitors lose the thread of where one region ends and the next begins. Objects are displayed as art with sparse context, which some find beautiful and others find evasive given how the collections were acquired. Only a fraction of the holdings is on show. The living wall is often patchy, and the building takes up a long thin site so there is more walking than the footprint suggests.

Common questions

How long do you need at the quai Branly?

Two hours for the main plateau at a steady pace, closer to three with a temporary exhibition. The garden adds 20 minutes.

Is it covered by the Paris Museum Pass?

Yes, the permanent collection is generally included, though temporary exhibitions can be extra. Check before you go.

What is the nearest station?

Pont de l'Alma on RER C, about two minutes away. Alma-Marceau on Métro 9 is a five-minute walk across the bridge.