Metz. Maëlys Sinnig, project manager of the Biodiversity Pavilion: "My favorite specimen is a mammoth baby tooth."

The 19th-century natural history cabinets in Metz were renowned. What did they look like?

Maëlys Sinnig : “They were wonderful, overcrowded spaces. Places of conservation, study, exhibition, and teaching. The specimens were kept behind wooden display cases—which we restored for the Pavilion—in rooms with creaky parquet floors, with that typical smell of naturalist collections.”

Maëlys Sinnig was 6 years old when a fire ravaged the Château de Lunéville and part of its collections: "I lived next door, it shocked me." She has much better memories of the 9th grade internship she did with the curators of the same château. At 10, another turning point confirmed her vocation: "An exhibition dedicated to mammoths at the Museum...

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