The Planet Archive
About the reopening of the Albert Kahn gardens and museum on 2 April in Boulogne-Billancourt.
At the beginning of the 20th century, one could be a banker and be concerned about the harmony of the world, devoting all his time and fortune to immortalizing the wonders of the planet to protect them from their "fatal disappearance" in the face of galloping industrialization. A living paradox, as solitary as he was worldly, a formidable financier as much as he was eager to work for universal peace, Albert Kahn (1860-1940) built up a unique collection of images that he called the Archives of the Planet, putting autochromes, the first colour photographs invented in 1903 by Louis Lumière, at the service of his pharaonic project, as well as kilometres of film and thousands of black and white stereoscopic plates giving the illusion of relief.
This Alsatian born in Marmoutier (67), who started working as a clerk in the Parisian bank of distant cousins at the age of 18 before founding his own bank twenty years later thanks to his expertise in the Japanese market, travelled around the world with his driver Albert Dutertre, whose logbook opens the exhibition "Around the World - The Crossing of Images, from Albert Kahn to Curiosity", which can be seen from 2 April at the Albert Kahn museum in Boulogne-Billancourt. But he also entrusted numerous photographers and filmmakers with the task of criss-crossing the planet, while he himself received the philosopher Henri Bergson, the sculptor Auguste Rodin, the dancer Isadora Duncan, Nobel Prize winners and ambassadors in the projection room of his private mansion with its extraordinary gardens. Bringing the five continents together in Boulogne-sur-Seine to raise the awareness of all the great people of this world.
There is no doubt that the Internet and online collections of contemporary works of art, now visible to all, would have delighted this great humanist and pacifist, who also created the Autour du monde scholarships to enable young graduates to travel. In the end, it was the department of the Seine, which became that of the Hauts de Seine, which inherited his fascinating collection of documentary images from 1936, and then the house-laboratory in Boulogne-Billancourt and its park: the bachelor who had remained childless had finally been ruined by the stock market crash of 1929.
In 1938, the Boulogne photo-cinematheque was set up, which commercially exploited this pool of images: some of the great names of the cinema drank from it, such as Abel Gance for his film "J'accuse". But Alfred Kahn's heritage project was not respected during his lifetime, as it was not until 1986 that his house became a museum open to all. He had been traumatised by the 1870 war, which had made him a German in spite of himself; he had become French again by decree in 1885 and had believed with all his strength in the power of images and the beauty of the world to put an end to international conflicts... He died alone and was buried in a common grave in 1940 after having been forced to declare himself a Jew, at the moment when Germany regained possession of Alsace.
The very pioneering citizen of the world left behind an encyclopaedic work of art designed to enlighten "future generations". It will be accessible to the public again from 2 April in the departmental museum bearing his name, rue des Abondances in Boulogne-Billancourt, after six years of work.
With the creation of a permanent tour route and a splendid space linking the interior and exterior like a giant origami, Alfred Kahn's former home is becoming an art gallery unlike any other. We can bet that the choice of the Japanese architect Kango Kuma to carry out this large-scale renovation would not have displeased the man who was so enchanted by the "calm and gentle way of life" of the Japanese that he had a whole Japanese village set up in his luxuriant property!
Valérie SUSSET