Welcome to MADD Bordeaux

The public will finally be able to (re)discover MADD ! Its two buildings classified as historical monuments, the mansion and the former prison, are now connected by a glass and steel pavilion, of great formal sobriety, like the entire renovation project carried out by the agency Antoine Dufour Architectes. Those who frequented the museum before its closure will be able to appreciate the transformation of spaces, the natural light present everywhere, the beauty of revealed stone walls. 

The MADD invites us to see the world through its objects, those that surround us. Many of them are useful and, due to their accuracy, their form, their decoration, their color, their poetry, can be perceived as beautiful. Bearers of a cultural identity, witnesses to a form of past domesticity, vibrant artifacts of the great current challenges, they say something about human relationships, our relationship with the world, our ways of living and making society.

The three inaugural exhibitions reflect the museum’s many facets, from decorative arts to contemporary design, through the study of techniques, craftsmanship, know-how, material culture: "Pauline Deltour, an apparent simplicity" in the large courtyards and cells of the old prison; "Ceramics, sensitive bodies" in the new Gallery of know-how and "Selected pieces from the Jacques Sargos collection" in the new cabinet dedicated to graphic arts. These exhibitions bring together nearly 50 lenders, museums, institutions and collectors, whom I would like to thank warmly. 

The program will continue the dialogue of eras, which characterizes the museum and to which its collections invite. It will also be open to the most recent developments in the field of design. Because it influences our ways of thinking, our behaviors and interactions, design has an essential role to play in the cultural, ecological and social transition we are experiencing. The exhibitions, meetings, workshops and conferences will give a voice to designers and will cross the expertise of specialists in the multiple fields in which the discipline intervenes today. 

In this pretty pedestrian and commercial street, the MADD also offers a new living space in the heart of Bordeaux, a place for meetings and relaxation for people who live there, work there or are passing through: its large landscaped courtyard, its café-restaurant, its shop invite to appropriate this heritage place in another way, less formal and perhaps also more daily. 

It will be necessary to wait until 2027 to review the beautiful refined woodwork of the mansion, whose major renovation will begin in the coming months. But we will find, from 2026, the thousands of people met outside the walls, in schools, with associations and organizations from the social field, at the Douves hall, in the Bastide Benauge district, or during exhibitions at the Cour Mably and the Capc. 

Led by the City of Bordeaux, supported by the State and the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region, this project was made possible thanks to the exceptional contribution of Robert G. and Elisabeth Wilmers. 

The transformation of the museum, both in its form and in its orientations, could not have seen the light of day without the work, the investment and the mobilization of the entire museum team. It is collectively, around shared values, that MADD has been reinvented to open a new page in its history.