The museum dedicated to Yves Saint Laurent opens in Marrakech

It opened on 19 October the new museum in Marrakech dedicated to Yves Saint Laurent, the French designer who most of all influenced contemporary fashion.

The museum is the tribute that Pierre Bergé, his life and work partner (who died last September 8), wanted to dedicate him. He chose to create the museum in the Moroccan city because of the designer’s tie with this city: “When Yves Saint Laurent first discovered Marrakech in 1966” Bergé said “ he was so moved by the city that he immediately decided to buy a house here, and returned regularly. It feels perfectly natural, fifty years later, to build a museum dedicated to his work, which was so inspired by this country.”

The museum was designed by the French architects duo Olivier Marty and Karl Fournier of the studio kO.

The inspiration for the architects came from a sketch of Yves Saint Laurent himself “We saw the design of the shoulder of the dress Le Smoking, a black and white sketch, very graphic, very strong, with a straight and curve lines connection. We did not think we would make a captivating quote of the famous dress, especially since we have never used circles or roundness in our projects. But here we are at the corner of two streets, just off the Jardin Majorelle, and we preferred a soft elegance rather than edge lines”.

The facade of the building thus becomes an intersection of cubes and circular volumes, empty and full, high and low volumes. The bricklayer seems to remember the texture of a lace or fabric. As with the lining of a couture jacket, the interior is radically different: velvety, smooth and bright.

The museum, with an area of 4000 square meters, is so arranged: 400 square meters are dedicated to the permanent exhibition of models created during the years by the designer, the museum also houses a space for temporary exhibitions (the first is dedicated to the painter Jacques Majorelle) a library with more than 6,000 volumes, an auditorium, a bookstore and a cafe.