Strasbourg Zoological Museum: a successful renovation

From the entrance, transformed into an 18 m high atrium, the visitor finds himself under a spectacular whale skeleton and a layer of boxes containing a sample of the animal world, from bellowing deer to owls with outstretched wings. After a long renovation, the city and the University of Strasbourg have succeeded in their challenge: to propel the venerable institution, located since 1893 at 29, boulevard de la Victoire, into the 21st century.

“This hall of biodiversity immediately places man at the heart of life,” says Sébastien Soubiran, director of the university’s Science Garden. It marks the starting point of a new circuit accessible to all thanks to adapted equipment: ramps, elevator, Braille maps, audiovisual devices, etc.

The permanent route offers a panorama of the evolution of the animal kingdom all around the globe since the 18th century. Among 1.2 million specimens naturalized, dried or preserved in fluids which constitute the collections, it presents 1,800, all restored.

With highlights: the evocation of the office of the scholar Jean Hermann (1738-1800), at the origin of the museum; the bird gallery; the “totem” rooms which present “star” animals such as the African coelacanth, a fish long considered a living fossil.

“We make the erosion of this biodiversity palpable, by highlighting extinct species such as the Tasmanian wolf, exterminated by intensive hunting in 1936,” underlines museum director Samuel Cordier.

Watch for the present times

The first semi-permanent section delves deeper into this impact of man on his environment through a focus on the Upper Rhine region. In an enchanting space, a cyclorama reminds the public of the lushness of these ecosystems, as scenographer Eva Chastagnol explains: “Instead of dioramas with frozen wallpaper, we placed specimens of emblematic species at the heart of video animations: woodpecker in the forest, deer in the middle of a meadow…” The 20th century developments are then highlighted, dams, hydroelectric power stations and industries which decimated these banks, until the ecological awareness of the 1980s.

A watchdog of the present, the museum also aims to be an ambassador for future research. Thus, the last section popularizes laboratory work which reveals the genius of life in its most unexpected aspects. “We are shedding light, for example, on how biologists explore the transmission of diseases by mosquitoes to make discoveries about immunity,” explains Sébastien Soubiran. And according to Samuel Cordier, it is by focusing on scientific documentation that the museum will continue to enrich itself.

Because there is no longer any question of massively expanding the collections through naturalist expeditions. “We only rely on donations: remains collected locally or coming from very far away, like this penguin or this petrel found dead by researchers in the southern lands.” Like the individuals it houses, the institution has succeeded in its metamorphosis.