Castle of Blérancourt Franco-American Museum

Blérancourt, France, France

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The Castle of Blérancourt Franco-American Museum, located in Blérancourt, France, is housed inside the Château de Blérancourt—a 1612–1619 neoclassical castle built by architect Salomon de Brosse for the Potier de Gesvres family and recognized as one of France's earliest classical architecture buildings.

The museum, officially named the National Museum of Franco-American Cooperation, was founded in 1924 by Anne Morgan, daughter of financier J. Pierpont Morgan, after she led humanitarian relief efforts in France during World War I through her American Committee for Devastated France (CARD), which used the castle as its headquarters in 1917.

Labeled a Musée de France in 2002, the museum celebrates Franco-American friendship through collections organized around three main themes: the Enlightenment ideals that inspired the first alliances between France and the United States, the shared struggles during which both nations fought side-by-side in the American Revolution and both World Wars, and transatlantic artistic exchanges featuring works by American artists who lived in France and French artists who lived in the United States.

The museum reopened in 2017 after a decade of archaeological excavations and renovations that significantly enlarged and modernized the building while respecting its classical architecture, and it also includes the Jardins du Nouveau Monde garden planted with native American plants like Virginia magnolia and maple trees.