Musée de Borda, Museum in Dax, Landes, France
Musée de Borda is a municipal museum in Dax, located in a 16th-century building that once served religious purposes. It displays collections covering natural history, archaeology, fine arts, and scientific artifacts across its exhibition spaces.
The museum was founded in 1807 when the natural history collection of Jacques-François Borda d'Oro was acquired. Over time, it expanded to include numerous archaeological discoveries that document the region's past.
The museum's name honours Jacques-François Borda d'Oro, the Dax naturalist and geologist whose cabinet of curiosities the town bought in 1807, and his cousin Jean-Charles de Borda, the metrologist. The Société de Borda has run the collections since 1876. Among the donors was Raphaël Milliès-Lacroix, mayor of Dax and colonial minister, whose African and Asian objects opened the extra-European ethnography collection.
The museum occupies the former Carmelite chapel on rue des Carmes, entered through the blue double doors under the "Musée de Borda" panel. It reopened on 13 September 2024 after renovation work costing close to one million euros, which modernised and insulated the building. Temporary exhibitions are announced on a banner hung beside the entrance arch.
Beneath the museum building lies an archaeological crypt containing the remains of a Gallo-Roman basilica. This underground space is accessible during your visit and shows how the building was used in ancient times.
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