MUSÉE DU QUAI BRANLY- a Green Building, 37 quai Branly, Paris France

As a dazzling showcase for art from the Americas, Africa, Asia, and Oceania, the slick Jean Nouvel–designed Musée du Quai Branly, almost at the foot of the Eiffel Tower, is implicitly intended to rectify the cultural arrogance at the heart of France’s colonial expansion during the 19th century. During this imperial adventure, the country accumulated a rich hoard of what was once known as “primitive art.” Though Nouvel’s design has had mixed reviews architecturally, there’s no denying that the museum houses one of the richest, most interesting, and best-displayed collections of African, Asian, North and South American, and Pacific-island art in the world.
But it is not just the exhibitions which draws one to the Musee du Quai Branly. The Museum also sports something, which is catching on in the big cities. A Green facade, a living wall. An exterior wall that is covered in vegetation. Not some vine that is clinging to the wall but something deliberate; a “vertical garden”. There are three types of green walls. Living walls, green facades and retaining living walls. A green façade is vines and climbing plants or cascading ground cover, which grows on supporting structures and roofs. Living walls are composed of pre-vegetated panels, modules, planted blanks that are affixed to a structural wall or free-standing frame. Green walls have been found to cut air pollutions, cut down on the noise pollution as well as cooling the surrounding area. Instead of concrete and brick reflecting the sun and heating up the surrounding area the green wall absorb the heat.