UNStudio designed Grand Musée de l’Afrique in Algiers, Algerie, for ARPC – Agence Nationale de Gestion des Realisations de Grands Projects de la Culture. The museum is designed as an amalgamation of history, geography, ecology, culture and presents itself as a sensitive, context-conscious modernizing impulse. The Grand Musée de l’Afrique of Alger is designed to bring Algeria and Africa a manifestation of its cultural and natural richness. Its architecture is a medium to generate a ‘trait d’union’ between African cultures, while blending into Algeria’s city fabric.

The museum highlights the diversity and multiplicity of the African continent due to the language of aggregation which was deployed in the design, acting as an organizational system. The varied nature of the collection led to a concept for a museum that reflects the idea of variety and diversification, where the program aggregates in a range of flexible scenarios by alternating exhibition and performance spaces. The logic of program distribution within the museum sets itself apart from the more classical notion of museum program distribution. By intertwining the narrative and the routing, diversifying the visitor experience into a mixed space with a loose start and a loose end, the Grand Musée de l’Afrique presents a unique museum experience.

The intensification of urban activities promotes the site as an urban destination, a social and cultural meeting point. Museum garden unveils several types of African ecologies, where a route of 2km crosses several landscape ecologies and the various gardens will allow for art work to be placed outside in a landscape scenario.