French architect Jean Nouvel has overhauled a Nineteenth-century division retailer alongside the Louvre in central Paris to create a brand new house for the Fondation Cartier, that includes moveable gallery areas.
Set to open to the general public this Friday, the constructing for the artwork basis of luxurious model Cartier, established in 1984, is designed as a recent artwork museum to enrich the neighbouring Musée du Louvre.
Nouvel aimed to radically overhaul the five-storey Haussmann-era block, which was initially inbuilt 1855 because the Grand Hôtel du Louvre, earlier than changing into the Grands Magasins du Louvre division retailer.
Whereas the constructing has solely been subtly renovated externally, inside, the French architect added 5 movable flooring that enable the inside to be reconfigured relying on the muse’s installations and exhibitions.
To create the 8,500-square-metre museum, Nouvel stripped out a lot of the constructing’s interiors. Nearly all of the unique areas have been destroyed in world battle two when a Lancaster bomber hit the division retailer.
A collection of pared-back gallery areas has been created between the present construction, together with concrete columns added throughout a Nineteen Seventies renovation and sandstone arches that recall the constructing’s facade.
Operating by way of the centre of the constructing, the principle gallery area is organized on 5 large lifts that measure between 200 and 363 sq. metres.
These flooring, which weigh round 250 tonnes every, are raised and lowered utilizing a cable and pulley lifting system.
“It is unprecedented,” defined Ateliers Jean Nouvel studio director Mathieu Forest on the press preview.
“Nothing is everlasting – not the ground, not the partitions, not the ceiling,” he continued. “You go to after which subsequent time you’ll have a completely completely different perspective.”
Every movable flooring may be positioned in certainly one of 11 completely different positions over three storeys to create quite a few inner preparations. Inserting all of the flooring on one stage creates a 1,200-metre gallery area.
When the platforms are at completely different ranges, retractable balustrades may be prolonged to cease individuals from falling.
The flooring are supported and raised on large, notched metal columns that give a heavy industrial look to the inside, contrasting the unique material of the historic constructing.
“All of the equipment was left to be seen,” stated Forest. “It’s a transferring place that is able to be reinvented each time,” he continued.
“For every exhibition you’ll uncover a brand new constructing, a brand new emotion.”
Three of the areas with movable flooring occupy former courtyards within the Nineteenth-century constructing, which have been topped with skylights.
Timber are positioned above the skylights, which embrace retractable closing mechanisms to permit curators to manage the quantity of sunshine getting into the area.
Surrounding the principle 85-metre-long, movable gallery area are quite a few secondary galleries, together with 1,500 sq. metres of balconies.
These surrounding areas are all seen from the encompassing streets by way of full-height home windows.
“We needed to reopen it [the building], reactivate it and join it to town to make a brand new city landmark,” defined Forest.
“Transparency [was defined early], the arches imply which you can see the road from inside and you may see contained in the gallery from the road.”
In addition to the gallery areas, the museum comprises a small lobby beside the principle entrance on Place du Palais-Royal, an auditorium with 110 seats in Nouvel’s signature purple hue, a bookshop and a small cafe.
A big restaurant on the japanese finish of the constructing is ready to open in April 2026, with a producing studio area opening later within the yr.
The gallery’s opening exhibition, curated by Fondation Cartier’s Grazia Quaroni and Béatrice Grenier, is known as Exposition Générale as a nod to the constructing’s former life as a division retailer.
Designed by Formafantasma, it goals to inform the historical past of the muse as a commissioner and collector of artwork over the previous 40 years.
Practically 600 works are on show – round 10 per cent of the establishment’s assortment – from earlier exhibitions held on the Fondation Cartier’s previous premises in Paris’s 14th arrondissement, which was additionally designed by Nouvel.
“Exposition Générale, the inaugural present, performs on the historical past of the constructing, which was a division retailer that organised big business exhibitions, that put collectively all types of various media, artefacts, textiles, vogue, and many others. into this sort of massively democratising method to displaying objects,” defined curator Grenier.
“So, we adopted this philosophy to indicate our assortment, which is itself a set of exhibitions, as a result of the Fondation Cartier, over its entire historical past of programming for 40 years, commissioned artists exhibited them, after which collected their work.”
“So it is a conflation of the truth that the museum may be an archive of exhibition making reasonably than simply being an archive of objects,” she continued.
“We had by no means proven the gathering to such an extent – we chosen works from every decade of accumulating, after which we recited historic titles of exhibitions to create thematic entry factors into the gathering.”
The ultimate exhibition on the earlier gallery for the Olga de Amaral exhibition, which was designed by Lina Ghotmeh – Structure, was not too long ago shortlisted for the 2025 Dezeen Awards within the Structure & Exhibition Scenography class.
Elsewhere, Nouvel not too long ago accomplished a “vertical backyard tower” for the Rosewood lodge in São Paulo.
The pictures is by Martin Argyroglo, until said.
