Albert Kahn Museum

The Albert Kahn Museum is located on the south side of the Bois de Boulogne, a large park on the western edge of Paris. The museum was founded by the merchant Albert Kahn, who lived from 1860 to 1940, and who documented his travels around the world through 72,000 color photographs and 183,000 meters of film. These archives form the core of the museum's collection. Albert Kahn was particularly interested in Japan and other parts of Asia, and his photographs document life in Asia at that time, carrying significant historical and ethnographic value. Recreating gardens from five continents was Albert Kahn's dream, and the Japanese garden, built by gardeners he brought from Japan, is particularly noteworthy. The museum's exhibition spaces are designed as a linear sequence along the path through the garden. The architects inserted screens made of aluminum and wood between the path and the external environment, continuing the garden's horizontal and vertical meandering and controlling the relationship between the two. The project by Kokaistudios creates a museum experience that is inseparable from its garden setting, where the building and landscape together tell the story of Albert Kahn's global vision.