The maritime museum was to be built on the quays of Saint-Malo. – Kengo Kuma & Associates
It’s a bit of a bad surprise at the start of this mandate. In Saint-Malo, the ambitious maritime museum project fell through. The decision was unveiled on Tuesday at a press conference given by the mayor of the city Gilles Lurton. Announced with great fanfare by the former mayor Claude Renoult, the construction of this building which was to become one of the emblems of the privateer city will ultimately never take place. The reason ? The cost of the project, of course. Estimated at 13 million euros, the museum of the sea had initially lost a floor, while seeing its price climb to 15 million.
Even at this price, the project imagined by the architectural firm Kengo Kuma had not found a taker. One, then two, then three calls for tenders had been launched but it seemed impossible to fit the site into the budget. “The architectural firm has itself specified that the project, even modified, would not fit into the target cost,” the city said in a statement. The project management team also threw in the towel, fearing not to respect the allocated budget.
An overall cost of over 45 million euros!
Asked, the Regional Directorate of Public Finances advised the city against embarking on the Maritime History Museum (MHM) project. The cost of the building alone had been reassessed at 22 million euros. “That is to say a total cost exceeding 45 million euros if we add the museography, the reserves as well as all the furniture and equipment”, specifies the municipality. “The city of Saint-Malo cannot afford a substantial increase in the budget allocated to it”.
In his press release, Gilles Lurton specifies that the museum project could see the light of day elsewhere, in a less expensive configuration.