Vannes Fine Art Museum

Supporting Nieto Sobejano in the competition for the expansion of the Vannes Fine Art Museum (La Cohue) was an exercise in precision. The challenge was to intervene in a building that is essentially the medieval heart of the city, ensuring that contemporary architecture felt like a natural progression of time.

La Cohue is a complex building with centuries of history and layers dating back to the 13th century. The museum needed more than just exhibition space; it needed a clear identity and better connectivity with the surrounding streets. The challenge was to unify all these historical parts without erasing their original character.

Nieto Sobejano’s winning idea centered on a new roof structure that acts as a great lintel or unifying element. This piece not only organizes the interior and brings in natural light but also creates an elegant dialogue between the ancient stone and new materials. It is an intervention that respects the city’s skyline while adding a layer of modernity.

Our mission was to help communicate how this new architecture would “land” within the French context. We crafted imagery that sought the soft, characteristic light of Brittany, focusing on the relationship between materials: the warmth of the stone and the lightness of the new intervention.

Our visual work focused on showing that the project was not an imposition, but rather a fine seam stitching the past to the future. We wanted the jury to feel the fluidity of the new pathways and how natural light transformed the interior spaces, turning what was once a labyrinthine building into an open and luminous museum.