France—After a four-year wait, Grasse—where half of France’s and 9 percent of the world’s perfume revenues are generated—at last has a palace of perfume patrimony. Architect Frederic Jung’s vision for the International Perfume Museum, a $17 million expansion of the original museum, overlays a 14th-century rampart, an 18th-century town house, and a 19th-century perfume factory with a transparent nave that lets in the celebrated Riviera light. This, says Grasse mayor Jean-Pierre Leleux, “abandons the static approach of museums of the 1970s.” IPM packs 4,000 years of perfume, soap, makeup, and cosmetics history into some 5,000 objects (flasks from ancient Egypt, Greece, and Rome; Marie Antoinette’s “necessaire”). Outside, the raw materials grow in gardens, while a gift shop promises more than postcards. Coming soon: IPM perfume bottles commissioned from contemporary artists.

 

International Perfume Museum: 8, Pl. du Cours; 334/97-05-58-00; museesdegrasse.com. "The Smell of Millennia" originally appeared in the Fall 2008 issue of Culture+Travel. For a complete list of articles from this issue available on ARTINFO, see Culture+Travel's Fall 2008 Table of Contents.