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Key figures

Origin and history

The Aquitaine Museum, located in Bordeaux, is a collection of objects and documents dedicated to the history of Bordeaux and the Aquitaine region, from prehistory to contemporary times. It also preserves the collections of the Centre national Jean-Moulin in Bordeaux as well as those of the Goupil museum. Since December 2025, it has hosted the Bordeaux World Heritage Interpretation Centre, a space dedicated to the architecture and urban heritage of Bordeaux.

The museum was founded in 1960 by the grouping of the lapidary museum (created in 1783), the prehistoric and ethnographic museum, and the museum of arms and ancient objects. Under the leadership of Georges-Henri Rivière, he became the Musée d'Aquitaine in 1962. Originally located in the southern wing of the Rohan Palace, in 1987 he moved to the former Faculty of Arts and Science, a building built in the 1880s by architect Charles Durand.

The museum's collections, which have more than 70,000 pieces, trace the history of Bordeaux and Aquitaine, from prehistory to today. They include art objects from Africa and Oceania, bearing witness to the city's port history. The museum also houses permanent and temporary collections, organized chronologically and thematically, covering periods ranging from Prehistory to contemporary times, including Antiquity, the Middle Ages, and modern and colonial periods.

In 2009, the museum opened new permanent rooms dedicated to the role of Bordeaux in the slave trade, addressing topics such as Atlantic trade, slavery, and the legacy of this history. These spaces, totaling 740 m2, are organized into four separate sections, each exploring a different aspect of this dark period. Another section, opened in 2014, is dedicated to Bordeaux as a world port from 1800 to 1939, illustrating the economic and urban transformations of the city.

The museum also maintains an important colonial fund, with 5,500 objects from non-European societies, mainly from Africa, Oceania, Asia and the Americas. These collections, often from military campaigns or religious missions, are the subject of an art inventory and decolonization project funded by the New Aquitaine region from 2023 to 2027. The aim of this project is to identify the sources of objects and to initiate reflections on their possible restitution.

Finally, the museum houses a library of more than 27,000 books, accessible to the public, as well as private collections such as those of Robert Coulon and François Bordes. These documentary resources complement the exhibitions and provide extensive access to local and regional history.

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