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Key figures

Origin and history

La Piscine, or Musée d'art et d'industrie André-Diligent, is a museum in Roubaix founded by the fusion of industrial and artistic collections initiated in 1835. Originally, Roubaisian manufacturers created a textile sample fund to protect their creations, before the municipality developed a museum section in 1861 under the impetus of Théodore Liridan. This first museum, enriched by donations and acquisitions, became a national museum in 1889 at the inauguration of the National School of Textile Arts and Industries (ENSAIT), where collections were transferred to train future engineers.

The museum experienced a decline after Victor Champier's death in 1929, then closed permanently in 1940 due to the war. In 1924, a municipal museum was created to host the donation of the painter Jean-Joseph Weerts, but it closed in 1981. The idea of relaunching a museum resurfaced in the 1980s, with the project to rehabilitate the old Art Deco municipal swimming pool, built between 1927 and 1932 by Albert Baert. Symbol of the hygienist movement, this swimming pool, closed in 1985 for security reasons, was chosen to house the new museum, inaugurated in 2001 after an architectural conversion led by Jean-Paul Philippon.

The museum's collections come from the historical holdings of the industrial museum and the Weerts Museum, enriched by major donations such as that of Henri Selosse in 1924 or the transfer of the Henri Bouchard fonds in 2006. The museum spans 8,000 m2 and features ancient textiles, ceramics, sculptures (including works by Camille Claudel and Auguste Rodin), as well as a space dedicated to the history of Roubaix. An extension of 1,600 m2, inaugurated in 2018, has added rooms for temporary exhibitions and young audiences, consolidating its reputation as one of the most dynamic museums in Hauts-de-France.

Recognized "Museum of France", La Piscine enjoys the support of the State, the Hauts-de-France Region, and local patrons. Its public success, with more than 200,000 annual visitors, is based on varied programming, temporary exhibitions (such as those dedicated to Picasso or Eugene Dodeigne), and a strong cultural accessibility policy. The building, combining Art Deco heritage and museum modernity, has become a symbol of the cultural revitalization of Roubaix, while preserving the industrial and artistic memory of the city.

The architecture of the museum, inspired by Cistercian abbeys, organizes the spaces around a central "reed garden", former pool yard. The nave of the basin, illuminated by stained glass windows symbolizing the rising and setting sun, now hosts the permanent collections, while the old bathtubs, arranged on two floors, house thematic rooms. The « refectory of swimmers », the buvette transformed into a restaurant, and the filter room become a shop complete this hybrid place, where social history, industrial heritage and contemporary creation blend together.

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