For the 42nd edition of the Journées du Patrimoine, we're off to theInstitut national d'histoire de l'art, which is offering tours and other events all weekend long on September 20 and 21, 2025. Restored by architect Henri Labrouste in the 19th century, the former imperial library invites you to discover its two spaces: the Labrouste room and the Colbert gallery. A wonderful visit for all lovers of libraries and historical monuments!
A true architectural masterpiece, the building has been listed as a historical monument since 1983, and reopened in 2016 after several years of restoration... Access to the building, usually reserved for art history students and researchers with a reader's card, is now open to the public on the occasion of these open days. By opening its doors, the INHA is offering the public the chance to discover its research facilities, which are usually closed to visitors, and to understand how the major issues surrounding images are approached across the discipline, and what tools art historians use to carry out their research.
Why not take advantage of this new edition of the Journées du Patrimoine (Heritage Days ) to discover this place that is exceptionally opening its doors to us? Discover the program below!
Awareness of the value of architectural heritage is inseparable from the experience of loss. As early as Abbé Grégoire's report on vandalism, presented to the French National Convention in 1793, a twofold duty emerged for those involved in heritage: to survey and to educate. The INHA's ancient and contemporary collections are in dialogue with one another, and show the fate of monuments saved, restored, abused or destroyed all over the globe and throughout history, as well as the many conflicts of values at work, which give rise to debate and controversy.
The library's rich archives also bear witness to the commitment of art historians and heritage professionals who, from Prosper Mérimée to André Chastel, have often combined scientific study with political commitment to safeguard architectural masterpieces. For while the means may differ, their efforts ultimately pursue the same goal, which is also that of INHA: to make known!
The exceptional opening of the library of the Institut national d'histoire de l'art during the European Heritage Days is an opportunity for the staff present, whether curators, storekeepers, restorers or researchers, to talk about their jobs and explain how the library works to the public.
In the rotunda of the Galerie Colbert, visitors can discover the latest works published by INHA.
Galerie Colbert's partners will be on hand to present their activities and answer any questions you may have about art history, heritage, research and the issues involved.
For the European Heritage Days, the two sites of the Institut national d'histoire de l'art - the Galerie Colbert, a former shopping arcade, and the prestigious Salle Labrouste, the library of the Institut national d'histoire de l'art, designed by the architect Henri Labrouste - are open to visitors, either on their own or with a guided tour led by students of archaeology, art history and heritage, or members of the Institut's teaching staff. Visitors can discover the little-known history of the Galerie Colbert, a Parisian passageway. In the library, the public can admire the spectacular reading room with its ceramics and painted decor, the medallions decorated with gold leaf, the monumental caryatids and the pneumatic system installed in 1932.
Workshop organized by the Institut national du Patrimoine (INP)
The stand will be an opportunity to showcase the teaching methods used in the Painting specialization, with exercises in recreating ancient techniques, particularly those of the Flemish and Italian Primitives, using egg-based binders and crushed pigments, as well as gold leaf decoration.
Exercise booklets on treatments such as refixing will also be presented, to show how different adhesives are evaluated in terms of their mechanical or physical properties, and the conservation of the pictorial layers envisaged, or the implementation of retouching exercises.
Speakers: Arisa Sato, Diane Fossier and Esther Ratouit
Workshop organized by the Institut national du Patrimoine (INP)
The stand will provide an opportunity to present the teaching methods used in the Graphic Arts specialization, with exercises in the reconstitution of ancient techniques, including the production of copies of illuminations using different pictorial techniques. Conservation-restoration tools and materials will be presented for dust removal and consolidation, with the public able to handle samples of Japanese paper and brushes.
A small gumming demonstration on an educational object will be presented, as well as a book undergoing restoration and pastiches.
Speakers: Aure Berger, Léa Bilger and Elise Remmelé
Ages 7 and over, with parent(s) present for younger children
Workshop organized by the Institut national du Patrimoine (INP) in partnership with the Plemo3D platform (Centre André-Chastel)
The INP research laboratory, represented by its scientific imaging engineer Chloé Bernard, and Grégory Chaumet from the Plemo3D platform (Centre André-Chastel), will be co-hosting a workshop dedicated to the digitization of heritage objects with a view to their restoration. This workshop will enable participants to virtually restore and manipulate a heritage object, by carrying out a 3D digital survey using a surface scanner.
Warning: Stroboscopic light used in this workshop - not recommended for people with epilepsy.
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To mark the European Heritage Days, INHA is offering a special tour of the Colbert Gallery with Pierre-Antoine Gatier, Architecte en Chef des Monuments Historiques, and designer Constance Guisset.
They will give a sneak preview of the restoration and redevelopment of this emblematic space, a blend of heritage and contemporary creation.
Together, they have imagined how to breathe new life into this emblematic place, revealing the different strata of its history, from the 17th century to the present day. The restoration highlights the rotunda, restoring its central role and original circular layout.
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In partnership with the EAC mission of the Institut national d'histoire de l'art, librarians at the Charlotte Delbo library (75002) are offering a workshop for families on books and art history. After discovering how a book is constructed, they will choose and describe the works of art of their choice. In this way, everyone can participate in the creation of their own "livrimage".
Ages 8 and up.
SOLD OUT
The Gernet-Glotz library, which specializes in the ancient history of the Greek and Roman worlds, will be opening its doors on the occasion of the European Heritage Days. Its core collections cover the human and social sciences of the Greco-Roman Mediterranean, from the 1st millennium BC to the 5th century AD.
Three workshops, led by specialists, will be offered to visitors:
- Reading and writing ancient Greek
- Discovering Roman cuisine
- How to use Greek and Roman images
During the European Heritage Days, visitors to the Galerie Colbert are invited to take part in free, no-reservation plastic workshops organized by the Chercheurs d'Art(chéologie) association. They can learn the linocut technique, as well as how to create architectural models. These workshops are supervised by doctoral students from the Colbert Gallery's partner universities.
Speakers: Hector Chapron, Tara Chapron, Arthur Meeschaert and Alexandra Ramond from the Chercheurs d'Art(chéologie) association.
Workshop for all ages by the association Chercheurs d'Art(chéologie)
In partnership with the EAC mission of the Institut national d'histoire de l'art, librarians at the Charlotte Delbo library (75002) are offering a workshop for families on perspective and architecture. After discovering the optical views that were used in the Age of Enlightenment to entertain salons and educate children, the workshop will revive them by assembling successive photographic views of the Passage Colbert and the Charlotte Delbo library. In this way, each and every one will participate in the creation of his or her own "archiscope".
(registration required for ages 8 and up)
SOLD OUT
What are the links between Piet Mondrian's unfinished Victory Boogie Woogie (1942-1944) and post-war Japanese and Japaneseist architectural photography?
As early as the mid-1950s, critics and photographers were eager to link Mondrian's paintings with modern Japanese architecture, and some historians went so far as to claim that Mondrian himself had been influenced by traditional Japanese architecture...
These powerful associations have contributed to the rapprochement between Western and Japanese architectural modernity. They are also a pillar of the survival of architectural Japonism, in other words, a pillar of the neo-Japanism that developed after the war. However, this relationship between Mondrian's abstraction and the aesthetics of Japanese architecture is rarely seen in architecture, but rather in architectural photography.
This lecture, which takes an oblique look at Mondrian, will examine the works of the greatest Japanese and American architectural photographers to explain the mechanisms of the Japaneseization of the architectural world between 1945 and 1985.
Speaker: Jean-Sébastien Cluzel (Centre André-Chastel)
Doctoral students from the Colbert Gallery's partner universities will also be taking the floor during the European Heritage Days. They will be presenting to the public, in a brief and lively format, their thesis topics and the methods they use on a daily basis for their research.
Program :
11:30 am - Akira TSUGAMI (Université Paris Nanterre), Georges de La Tour's Scène nocturne: l'intime religieux
12:00 - Camille PRIEUR (Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes - PSL /Université de Fribourg), "Weaponry and defensive costume decorations for high-risk professions (military, gladiators, chariot drivers)".
1:30 pm - Lison LE GUEN (Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne), "Hubert de Givenchy, a French couturier in the United States (1952- 1995)".
15h - Maris BOUCHARD (Université Paris Nanterre / Université des Antilles), "Women artists in colonial situations: artistic practices, circulations and cultural transfers between France and its Empire (1919-1950)".
3:30 pm - Tamara MOROZ (université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne), "How did architects reinvent the tomb in the XVIIIᵉ century?"
It's one of the highlights of the program: in the Jacqueline Lichtenstein auditorium of the Galerie Colbert, 20 Master 2 students in art history and archaeology will have three minutes to present their research in a dedicated competition to an audience unfamiliar with the discipline. They must give a clear, engaging and stimulating presentation of their research in three minutes (180 seconds), making the complex subjects they have been working on for several months understandable to all. A jury of leading art historians will award prizes for the best presentations.
Aucun événement annoncé à ce jour, le programme est mis à jour en fonction des annonces officielles.
Dates and Opening Time
From September 20, 2025 to September 21, 2025
Location
National Institute of Art History
58 Rue de Richelieu
75002 Paris 2
Access
Metro line 3 "Quatre Septembre" or "Bourse" station
Prices
Free
Official website
www.inha.fr
