THE GUIDE MUSEUMS 2016


The newly opened and very well-received Musée Soulages in Rodez plays host to some 500 pieces donated by abstract artist Pierre Soulages and his wife Colette


www.centrepompidou-metz.fr Elusa Capitale Antique 32800 Eauze


Nowadays they call the town Eauze. Back in Roman times, it was known as Elusa. Thanks to some seriously Indiana Jones- style excavation, the old Gallo-Roman settlement is now home to three visitor attractions, all under the umbrella title of Elusa Capitale Antique. In Eauze itself is the archaeological site known as Domus de Cieutat and the Musée du Trésor, which houses the astounding Trésor


146 ❘ FRANCE TODAY Summer 2016


d’Eauze, featuring over 28,000 ancient coins and 50 or so jewels and priceless antiquities. A few miles away, in the town of Montreal, are the remains of the Villa de Seviac. www.elusa.fr


Savonnerie Marius Fabre 13300 Salon-de-Provence You’ll smell lovely and be squeaky clean after a tour round the wonderful Marius Fabre soap factory in Salon-de-Provence. The business was founded in Marius’s garden shed in 1900.


Nowadays, fortunately, with the fourth generation of Fabre in charge, the factory is a lot more impressive than a mere shed. Within the building, in the old drying-room to be precise, is the Marseilles soap museum which recounts the story of Provençal soap from the Middle Ages to the present day. www.marius-fabre.com


Musée Soulages 12000 Rodez


François Hollande once described Pierre Soulages as


“the world’s greatest living artist”. That’s up for debate but there’s no doubt this Aveyron gallery dedicated to its most famous son is hugely impressive. The enormous rusty steel building (designed by RCR Arquitectes) opened in 2014 and is now home to much of Soulages’s work (most notably his exclusively black paintings) as well as works by other modern and contemporary artists. In its first year the gallery welcomed 250,000 visitors. musee-soulages.rodezagglo.fr


IMAGE © CRT MIDI-PYRÉNÉES


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