Timeline

Heritage classified

Key figures

Origin and history

The Natural History Museum of Dijon was founded in 1836 by the naturalist Léonard Nodot. Set up in the old pavilion of the Arquebuse, a barracks built around 1608 for arquebusiers, it is part of a park that once served as an exercise field in the 16th century. This site, enlarged after the Revolution, welcomes in 1833 the botanical garden, originally located elsewhere in the city, supplemented by an arboretum. Today, the museum is part of the Arquebuse Garden, alongside the Hubert Curien Planetarium (opened in 2005) and the botanical garden, forming a pole dedicated to the sciences of the Earth, Nature and the Universe.

The Arquebuse Park, classified as a Historic Monument in 1964, features a typical layout of French-style gardens, with box-lined platforms and scattered sculptures, such as The Three Graces or a copy of Michelangelo's Moses. Crossing the Raines Creek, it houses a living collection of anatids and two orangeries, as well as the Raines Pavilion (opened in 1994), dedicated to temporary exhibitions and laboratories. The museum itself is divided into three spaces: the pavilion of the Arquebuse (permanent exhibition on biodiversity), the pavilion of the Raines, and the two orangeries.

The Hubert Curien Planetarium, added to the complex in 2005, attracts approximately 100,000 annual visitors, including a large school audience. It offers interactive activities, lectures and screenings, strengthening the educational vocation of the site. The museum, a member of the RECOLNAT network, thus illustrates the evolution of a military place into a space dedicated to the dissemination of scientific knowledge, while preserving its architectural and landscape heritage of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

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