The Louisiana Manifesto

The great French architect Jean Nouvel has a particular fondness for Louisiana and wrote a manifesto for the museum in Humlebæk in 2005. To mark the 20th anniversary of the Louisiana Manifesto, it has now been republished as a pocket edition in English. In the text, Nouvel describes Louisiana as a place that has taken it upon itself to overcome the neutrality of our buildings—the loose condition that they can be used for almost anything. He appreciates Louisiana because the building itself is distinctive and does not merely stand at one’s disposal.

The manifesto is also a recognition of Knud W. Jensen and the museum’s architects, who over decades have worked to give the place a special spirit—what in Humlebæk is referred to as genius loci.

“It is one of the missions of Louisiana’s architecture to complete, redirect, enrich, and transform the ways people live in ways that unspecified architecture could never dream of. Let us be Louisianan!”

– Jean Nouvel