MNAST Musée National Archéologie et Sciences Terre

The project is based on the cohabitation of two fields of knowledge and collections – Earth Sciences and Archaeology – which, although in a temporal continuity, are of very different natures. The new National Museum of Archaeology and Earth Sciences in Rabat is more than just a repository for knowledge and works; it is also the key player in a policy of cultural development, the first stages of which are, after the necessary work on the collections (their constitution, inventory, protection, conservation, understanding, etc.), the implementation of encounters with the public, the rediscovery of their links with the territory, the expression of their openness to the world… A public place, then.
A place where both disciplines are presented as “knowledge”, but where the positioning changes and knowledge is questioned. The deeper meaning of our knowledge is questioned. It’s a place where we take a look at our world, where we embrace in a single glance millions of years of nature and culture, of accumulated knowledge, and all this in a given territory, Morocco.
Although the two disciplines are in dialogue, the two exhibition spaces are differentiated by their themes, with two different visitor experiences. One is light, the other protected; one is path, the other orthonormal; one is landscape, the other urban; one is nature, the other culture. And while the two spaces have a temporal continuity, a visit to one is not necessarily linked to a visit to the other. From an introductory space combining a cave of origins, a terrestrial and celestial globe and a sensitive map of Morocco, visitors can choose one or the other, both…