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How an Idea Becomes an Institution or Exhibition That Outlives Its Moment

"Opening a museum is not the finish line; it's the beginning," Museum Studio's Delphine de Canecaude tells Observer.

Museum Studio CEO Delphine de Canecaude has, in her own words, one of the best jobs in the world. Since taking the helm of the Paris-based cultural engineering firm in early 2023, she has guided a team of 400 specialists through more than its share of ambitious projects in 100 countries, from a reimagined Mona Lisa experience at the Grand Palais Immersif to a visitor experience for Gandhi’s Ashram in Ahmedabad.

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In May, the firm designed and produced “Hidden Treasures” at the Shed in New York, which explored two and a half centuries of artistic exchange between France and the United States through luxury goods, art and design. Museum Studio has also done strategic work for the V&A East and collaborated with institutions including the Smithsonian, the British Museum and the Zayed National Museum in the U.A.E.

The career that brought de Canecaude to the firm has been similarly eclectic. After studying at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris, she spent nearly two decades in advertising, founding Etoile Rouge, which was later acquired by BETC Group, and cultural ventures including The RedList and Stella Studio. What links those chapters, she might say, is the same question that drives good museum work: how do you take something most people know little about and make it genuinely matter to them?

Observer spoke with her about the underappreciated longevity of museum design, where the field tends to go wrong and right and what it actually takes to turn an idea into an exhibition. Several times during our exchange, de Canecaude spoke of the importance of authenticity. As much as technology and the hybrid experiences it empowers have transformed museums, she argues, it is the real—the actual artifact, the actual painting—that must remain the irreducible core of what museums offer their visitors.

Tell me about your job, which sounds amazing. Can you walk me through the steps you take when working with museums on shows?

I genuinely think I have one of the best jobs in the world. Every project is completely different. Every brief takes us into a new subject that we often know very little about at the beginning, so we’re constantly learning. One day we’re immersed in Renaissance painting, the next in natural history, contemporary art, archaeology or science. Every project is a new adventure.

What makes Museum Studio quite unique is that we’re a true one-stop shop for museums and cultural institutions. We can support a project across its entire value chain.

Sometimes we’re helping a client imagine a museum that doesn’t exist yet, defining its vision, its masterplan and its business model. Sometimes we’re designing the visitor experience for an entire museum, creating a temporary exhibition, or developing a single gallery. On other projects, we’re asked to focus on something very specific, whether that’s strategic consulting, exhibition design, content development, media production, retail, publishing through our sister company Skira, or even the construction and delivery of the exhibition itself.

That’s what makes the job so exciting: no two projects are ever the same. Museums are extraordinary collective endeavors. Every project brings together curators, architects, scientists, historians, designers, filmmakers, educators and craftspeople. Our role is to orchestrate all that expertise into one coherent experience for visitors.

Recently, we worked with the Louvre on a new version of the immersive Mona Lisa experience, originally produced by the Grand Palais Immersif. We preserved all the scientific research and scholarly content, but completely reimagined the narrative. Instead of someone telling the story of the Mona Lisa, she tells her own story in the first person. That simple shift completely changes the emotional connection visitors have with the work.

We also recently opened an exhibition in New York with the Comité Colbert, bringing together 65 French luxury maisons around the story of Franco-American........

© Observer