FRAC Centre Orléans

In 1982, as part of the decentralisation policy, a cultural convention between the State and Regional Councils implemented a Fonds Régional d’Art Contemporain (Regional Contemporary Art Fund) in each of France’s regions. This initiative would enable each region to dispose of a collection representative of the tendencies in contemporary art at national and international levels.

The FRAC’s missions consist in: constituting a collection, diffusing the works it contains (exhibitions, loans), supporting creation, and encouraging public awareness.

In 1991, the FRAC Centre opted for an atypical collection which decided to bring contemporary art together with experimental architecture, from the 1950s to the present day. With its international dimension, its collection includes seminal projects of the architectural avant-gardes of the 1960s and 1970s, known by the umbrella term “radical architecture”.

Today, the FRAC Centre collection includes some 600 works, 800 architectural models and maquettes, and more than 15,000 drawings, as well as many architects’ collections. It is represented through 150 architects and 170 artists. This collection forms a unique heritage of experimental architecture of the last fifty years linked with artistic creation, rivalling the world’s greatest architectural collections (Centre Pompidou-MNAM in Paris; MoMA in New York; CCA in Montreal; DAM, Architectural Museum, in Frankfurt).