Museum of Decorative Arts of Bordeaux

The Museum of Decorative Arts and Design (French: Musée des Arts décoratifs et du Design, abbreviated MADD or MADD-Bordeaux) is a French museum in Bordeaux, Gironde, housed in the former Hôtel de Lalande, an 18th-century aristocratic townhouse. Founded as a museum in 1925 and reopened in its present form in 1955, it specializes in decorative arts and furniture from the 18th and 19th centuries, with a particular focus on the Bordeaux region. Since 2013, under director Constance Rubini, the institution has incorporated modern design into its mission, seeking to foster dialogue between applied arts and contemporary design. As of 2023, the museum is closed for extensive renovation, with partial reopening scheduled for April 2026.

The museum's origins trace to 1924, when the main corps de logis of the Hôtel de Lalande, then municipal property, was freed for the creation of a "musée d'Art ancien." The historian Paul Courteault served as its first curator from 1924 to 1948. The museum was forced to close during World War II, and in 1940 its collections were crated and stored in the cellars of the Musée des Beaux-Arts. Following the war, Xavier Védère, director of the municipal archives, oversaw its reorganization. It reopened to the public on 2 July 1955 as the Musée des Arts Décoratifs. Police services, which had remained in the building's service wing since 1924, finally departed in 1964. In 1984, the museum was reconfigured to evoke a wealthy aristocratic residence typical of Enlightenment-era Bordeaux, with reserves placed in the former prison building. A pivotal change came in 2013 when Constance Rubini, upon becoming director, successfully petitioned the Haut Conseil des musées de France to rename the institution the Musée des Arts décoratifs et du Design, signaling its ambition to become a major center for design culture in France. The museum closed in January 2023 for major renovation works costing over 13.5 million euros, with partial reopening on 22 April 2026.

The museum's collections span furniture, port furniture, ceramics, glassware, goldsmith work, musical and measuring instruments, miniatures, tableware, and personal objects. These holdings exemplify French decorative arts, particularly those of Bordeaux, during the 18th and 19th centuries, and serve as testimony to Bordeaux's history as an Enlightenment city and major trading port. The collections range from the Middle Ages to the late 18th century, illustrating applied arts in crafts involving wood, metal, earth, and fire. The ceramics collections are especially notable for their wealth and variety. The museum's presentation includes several reconstitutions in the spirit of American period rooms, alongside rooms where display cases and antique furniture coexist. Since 2013, the institution has developed programming to bring decorative arts and design into dialogue, supported by the cultural services of the city of Bordeaux, with the aim of nurturing cultural dissemination and education in design while connecting economy and culture.

The permanent exhibition occupies three floors in the main wing of the building. Four small 19th-century salons are dedicated to the Collection Jeanvrot, which includes extensive material on the French Restoration and Prince Henri, Duke of Bordeaux, the presumptive heir of King Charles X of France. The centerpiece of this collection is a life-size statue of the prince at age seven, made of biscuit porcelain by the Sèvres porcelain manufactory, a unique piece originally owned by the royal family. The museum also holds the Fonds Bonie, a legacy from Édouard Bonie, a Marseille lawyer and collector who built a house-museum and bequeathed it to the city of Bordeaux; the collection was accepted on 28 May 1895. Additionally, the Georges Périé bequest includes Moroccan faience grouped under a section titled "Arabia." Temporary exhibitions are held in the former prison building and ancillary structures, covering approximately 300 square meters.

The museum occupies the Hôtel de Lalande, built in 1778, possibly by architect Étienne Laclotte, for Pierre de Raymond de Lalande, a parlementarian jurist and wealthy representative of the "noblesse de robe." Raymond de Lalande derived considerable wealth from his marriage to Jeanne Gayon, dame d'Urtubie, which brought extensive slave-holding plantations in Saint-Domingue (present-day Haiti). The property changed hands several times after 1828, with owners including Marthe Gabrielle Budan Asselin, a wealthy Creole from Martinique also with Saint-Domingue interests, and later Jean-Baptiste Duffour Debarbe and his son Lodi-Martin Duffour Dubergier, mayor of Bordeaux from 1842 to 1848. The city of Bordeaux acquired the building in 1878 (or 1880 in some accounts) for police and vice control headquarters. In 1885, architect Marius Faget designed a municipal prison on the site of the former garden, which entered service in June 1886. Both the hôtel and the former prison were classified as historical monuments in 2018.

The museum is located in central Bordeaux, near the town hall and Place Gambetta. It is accessible via line B of the Bordeaux tramway from the Gambetta-Mériadeck station. The museum is owned by the city of Bordeaux. Since January 2023, it has been closed to the public for extensive renovation works, with programming conducted "hors les murs" (off-site) during the closure period. Partial reopening occurred on 22 April 2026, following three years of works. The museum's website is https://madd-bordeaux.fr/.