The main modern time architectural line aims at avoiding plagiarizing Perret. The vocabulary has more liberty, but must follow the spirit of modernity which fired the design of the city centre. Therefore, following the great constructions schemes of the 1940s, other architects take over: Lagneau designs the Malraux Museum now Muma (1961), Oscar Niemeyer imagines the Cultural Centre (1982), and Guillaume Gillet the footbridge over Commerce Dock (1969).
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The footbridge over commerce Dock
In 1887, a metallic footbridge had been built at the time of the International Maritime Exhibition. It was replaced in 1899 by a footbridge with a steel deck. On 5th December 1950, shopkeepers and residents asked for Commerce Dock to be filled up in order to link up the different districts of the city separated by its length. However, it was decided to keep it as it gave the city its maritime identity.
The André Malraux Museum of Modern Art
Facing the sea, the André Malraux Museum of Modern Art (MuMa) occupies a place open to space and light. This exceptional character of the site is underlined by The Signal, a sculpture by Henri-Georges Adam, which gives a concrete frame to part of a maritime landscape which has inspired quite a lot of the artists presented in the collections of the Museum. The MuMa, inaugurated in 1961 by André Malraux himself, is well-known for its collections of end of nineteenth and twentieth century art.
The Niemeyer Cultural Centre
The Cultural Centre sits as an extension behind Commerce Dock, one of the essentials landscapes of the city centre; it occupies a 120 metres side square, surrounded to the south, north and west by Perret buildings on their orthogonal grid. Niemeyer did not wish to design buildings whose shape would contradict the surrounding architecture. As an architect conscious of the urban import of his work, he exploited contrasts in scale, masses and levels.