Laon is now home to a unique new cultural space: the Mauro Corda Museum. Located in the heart of the city, in the former Caisse d’Épargne building on Rue Franklin-Roosevelt, this museum invites visitors to discover the world of a sculptor whose work defies easy categorization.
Deeply attached to the Aisne region, where he also has his studio in the southern part of the department, Mauro Corda chose Laon to give his work a new dimension. Charmed by the city and its heritage, the artist has established a museum that brings together different facets of his creative output and offers the public a journey through his artistic explorations. The project required additional renovation and restoration work, with an elegant design that preserves the building’s character. The new spaces have been designed to showcase the sculptures and allow visitors to wander among the works.
From the ground floor, the exhibition addresses a central question in Mauro Corda’s work: how we look at bodies and perceive difference. The artist notably reinterprets iconic figures from art history, revisiting ancient sculptures such as Michelangelo’s David and Rodin’s The Thinker. These familiar references are transformed, displaced, and sometimes juxtaposed with representations of people with disabilities or of short stature.
With this opening, Laon gains a space where art is not merely contemplated: it challenges, sometimes unsettles, and above all, invites us to see things differently.
