Museum of Decorative Arts of Bordeaux, Design museum in hôtel de Lalande, Bordeaux, France.
The Museum of Decorative Arts and Design occupies the Hôtel de Lalande, a stone townhouse built in 1778, probably by architect Étienne Laclotte. Its light beige facade has two projecting sections with tall white-framed windows in two rows, a dark grey slate roof with two stone chimneys and three rounded dormer windows, and a cobblestone courtyard in front. Inside, period rooms evoke an aristocratic Bordeaux residence of the Enlightenment.
Built in 1778, probably by architect Étienne Laclotte, for Pierre de Raymond de Lalande, a counselor at the Bordeaux parlement whose wealth came from plantations in Saint-Domingue. After the Revolution the mansion was rented to the city, housed the octroi administration, and in 1808 lodged Napoleon's secretary of state Hugues Bernard Maret. The city bought it in 1878 for its police and vice services; a municipal jail was added in 1885–86. The main house became a museum in 1924.
The museum displays French furniture, ceramics, and decorative objects that show the craftsmanship of different periods. You can see how people in earlier times furnished and decorated their homes with valuable pieces.
The museum stands on Rue Bouffard, near the town hall and Place Gambetta, reachable by tram line B at Gambetta-Mériadeck. It closed in January 2023 for renovation costing over 13.5 million euros and reopens partially on 22 April 2026; during the closure, programming continues off-site across Bordeaux.
The former municipal jail, built in 1885 to plans by architect Marius Faget on the site of the mansion's garden, now houses the museum's temporary exhibitions. It was opened in June 1886 for sailors who broke discipline and for women held under morality regulations. Both the mansion and the jail were classified as historical monuments in 2018.
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