en.Wedoany.com Reported - Japanese firm Kengo Kuma & Associates has designed and built a contemporary protective gallery for the porch of Saint-Maurice Cathedral in Angers, France, inaugurated on April 9. Located in front of the protected historic monument, the gallery aims to protect a group of polychrome painted statues dating from the Middle Ages. The large statue-column porch at the cathedral's main entrance, created in 1150, is an iconic work of early Gothic art depicting scenes from Saint John's Book of Revelation. Its polychrome, repainted in the 17th century, still retains about 70% of its original color.

Built between the 11th and 16th centuries, the cathedral has been classified as a historic monument since 1862. The porch housing the statues is exposed to the elements due to the cathedral's location atop a hill overlooking the Maine River in central Angers, and the local soft travertine stone used for the porch is highly fragile. The Regional Directorate of Cultural Affairs (DRAC) for Pays de la Loire stated that restoration work could only proceed in tandem with the creation of a permanent protective measure. Previously, the statues were sheltered from wind and rain by a large wooden protective cover until the new gallery was completed. A medieval building from the 13th century once provided shelter for these colors, but it fell into disrepair and was demolished in 1807. The polychrome lay dormant under white paint until it was rediscovered during restoration work completed in 2019.

Kengo Kuma's Paris team, in collaboration with historic monument conservation architects from Brunelle Architecture, won the design competition and proposed the new gallery. The building had to be strictly within the footprint of the former structure and could not disturb its buried foundational remains. Since no fixings could be made to the historic facade, the building had to be self-supporting. Its height falls between the top of the porch and the lower edge of the dripstone. These constraints defined a rectangular volume 11.20 meters high and 21 meters long. The building consists of seven arches, with the soffits supported on inclined walls and arch decorations featuring stepped patterns to enhance lightness, inspired by the folds of the stone garments of the porch figures. The material is precast concrete using aggregates from the Loire Valley, echoing the golden hue of the travertine. The arches adopt a Romanesque round arch profile to avoid disharmony with the Angevin pointed arches. Kengo Kuma stated he preferred the simplicity of the Romanesque style, envisioning the gallery as an "extremely pure monolith." The gallery is designed to avoid creating an obstruction, allowing the public to glimpse the medieval statues from the public space, with interior depths varying between 5 and 7 meters.

The gallery's lighting, designed by 8'18'' Lumière, aims to highlight the 12th-century statues. Light comes from two large wall lamps suspended in the recesses of the interior arches, installed at a height of 4.50 meters to directly illuminate the tympanum. The fixtures are embedded in slender oval recesses, 2.60 meters high and only 60 centimeters wide, with LED light sources enclosed in micro-perforated stainless steel housings manufactured by La Forge de Style. The lamps are symmetrically positioned facing the porch, emitting a warm white light coordinated with the stone, and illuminating the forecourt area through structural gaps, giving the gallery a lantern-like character. The project owner is the Regional Directorate of Cultural Affairs for Pays de la Loire, under the French Ministry of Culture. The building area is 147 square meters, with construction costs of €2.7 million (excluding tax). Project management includes Kengo Kuma & Associates (architect), Brunelle Architecture (historic monument conservation architect), Betem Atlantique (TCE engineer, economist, construction coordinator), and 8'18'' Lumière (lighting designer). Key contractors include Albizzati (main structure; in collaboration with Jousselin Préfabrication, subcontractor for precast concrete and Bfup components), Luc Durand (VRD), Cegelec (CFO, CFA), and La Forge d'art Loubière (metalwork).

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