The Cité de la Musique ("City of Music"), also known as Philharmonie 2, is a group of institutions dedicated to music and situated in the Parc de la Villette, 19th arrondissement of Paris, France. It was designed with the nearby Conservatoire de Paris (CNSMDP) by the architect Christian de Portzamparc and opened in 1995. Part of François Mitterrand's Grands Projets, the Cité de la Musique reinvented La Villette – the former slaughterhouse district.[1]
It consists of an amphitheater, a concert hall that can accommodate an audience of 800–1,000, a music museum containing an important collection of music instruments from different cultural traditions, dating mainly from the fifteenth- to twentieth-century, a music library, exhibition halls and workshops. The Cité de la Musique, as an EPIC, was also entrusted by the State with the management of the Salle Pleyel, which reopened on September 13, 2006, after major renovations. In 2015, it was renamed Philharmonie 2 as part of the Philharmonie de Paris when a larger symphony hall was built by Jean Nouvel and named Philharmonie 1. Its official address is 221, Avenue Jean Jaurès, 75019 Paris.[2]
The Cité de la Musique, also known as Philharmonie 2, with an area of 28,748 m2, includes:
Placed under the supervision of the Ministry of Culture. Designed by the architect Christian de Portzamparc and inaugurated on December 7, 1995, it brings together a set of facilities and services dedicated to music and is located on the Place de la Fontaine-aux-Lions at the Porte de Pantin in the district du Pont-de-Flandres in the 19th arrondissement of Paris, on the edge of the Parc de la Villette.
The Musée de la Musique features a collection of about items, comprising around musical instruments, instrument elements or pieces of art (paintings, sculptures, etc.) collected by the Conservatoire de Paris since 1793 as well as some archives and a library of written and audiovisual documents. The museum's collection, which opened to the public in 1864, and was relocated at the Cité de la musique in 1997, contains instruments used in Western classical, modern and non-European music from the sixteenth century to the present time. It includes lutes, archlutes, almost 200 classical guitars,[3] violins by Italian luthiers Antonio Stradivari,[4] the Guarneri family, Nicolò Amati; French and Flemish harpsichords; pianos by French piano-makers Sébastien Érard and Ignaz Pleyel; saxophones by Adolphe Sax, etc. and many are also presented online.[5]
The instruments are exhibited in five departments by period and by type. Personal audio devices are provided to visitors at the entrance, allowing them to listen to commentary and musical excerpts played on the instruments, complemented by video screens and scale models along the way.