On the ground floor of the Garden House, the premises are clean and spacious for the small team led by Patrick Simon who has been entrusted with the head of Monaco Heritage Institute for which everything is to be created.
He was one of the pillars of the Museum of Anthropology. Here he is director of the Heritage Institute. Patrick Simon, PhD in geology, went from bones and other fragments of pottery to a very different mission: to build, from scratch, a service attached to the Department of Cultural Affairs (DAC) to define the purposes of the Institute. He runs the ground floor of the Garden House since February 15, 2018.
With his small team – Leticia de Massy, project manager, Julien Cellario, head of heritage operations, and Raphaële Raynaud-Rose, head of the office – Patrick Simon is still refining what can fall within the scope of his skills. For between the museums and their curators, some state services such as the direction of the Prospective, Town Planning and Mobility, led by Séverine Canis-Froidefond who has, for example, requested an architect for the inventory of remarkable building, the action of the Heritage Institute is limited.
Patrick Simon reads article 1 of the law: “The Heritage Institute (…) has the mission to ensure the study, protection, conservation, restoration, enhancement and transmission to the generations future national heritage, without prejudice to the missions devolved to the service of the State responsible for implementing the Principality’s urban development policy.”
30.000 € PER YEAR FOR RESTORATION
So it’s clear: architecture is not him. Inventories? It is not him either because no one in the team is hired as a “conservative”. Thus, for the work done in the public space concerning sculptures, Patrick Simon uses the term “proofing”.
On the other hand, “we are responsible for ensuring that museum inventory work is well done,” notes Patrick Simon.
There is also catering, for which an envelope of 30,000 euros per year is dedicated and to which the whole team works. “We worked on a painting in the chapel of the Sacred Heart”, notes Patrick Simon. Cost of the operation: 11,500 €.
Another work is done: “The restoration of a fossilised cervid wood” for € 3,000.
Julien Cellario emphasises, meanwhile, that they are “very happy to work to restore a banner of Gonfalon procession of the archiconfrérie.” An exceptional piece that will require a budget of several hundred thousand euros.
An eclectic array of missions for which the Heritage Institute has 130,000 euros per year. And to evoke, pell-mell, the bridge Wurttemberg, the mills, and the intangible heritage such as music, traditions, the Palladian … So many productions that could fall under the thumb of the Garden House team.