This One-of-a-Kind Luxurious Traveling Museum Is Also World’s Largest Sailing Catamaran

We don’t often hear about non-profit organizations that are connected to luxurious yachting projects. Set up by Frederic Jousset, a tech entrepreneur, Art Explora is a French organization that wants to facilitate people’s access to art and culture. Its most impressive project is a mobile museum based on a giant catamaran that will be traveling on specific cultural routes.

Aptly named Artexplorer, the 152-foot (46.5 meters) long catamaran is currently being built in Italy, with an exterior by naval architect Axel de Beaufort, and interior design by Guillaume Verdier. According to Beaufort, the realization of what will become the world’s largest sailing catamaran that will also be a museum meant to receive thousands of visitors, is an unprecedented architectural project.

The vessel itself was designed as a work of art, with the best materials and building techniques. The biggest challenge for Beaufort was to harmonize the modular spaces with the overall design, for an on-board experience that would be similar to visiting an art gallery. Plus, the catamaran was designed to respect “the highest environmental requirements.”

The impressive Artexplorer is meant to welcome around 2,000 visitors per day. According to The Art Newspaper, admission will be free, and visitors will have to sign up on the organization’s online platform in advance. In the recently-launched video presentation of the project, the organization explains that Artexplorer will host various artistic projects on board, which won’t be the same each time, and visitors will also get the chance to attend cultural festivals in each port where the ship stops.

Art Explora’s unique mobile museum is scheduled to set sail by the end of 2023.