{"id":124340,"date":"2025-10-15T19:53:14","date_gmt":"2025-10-15T19:53:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/124340\/"},"modified":"2025-10-15T19:53:14","modified_gmt":"2025-10-15T19:53:14","slug":"jean-nouvels-fondation-cartier-reopens-in-paris","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/124340\/","title":{"rendered":"jean nouvel’s fondation cartier reopens in paris"},"content":{"rendered":"

Fondation Cartier pour l\u2019art contemporain reopens in paris<\/p>\n

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The Fondation Cartier pour l\u2019Art Contemporain\u2019s new building, designed by Jean Nouvel<\/strong><\/a>, opens on October 25th, 2025, at 2 Place du Palais-Royal, Paris<\/strong><\/a>. The architectural project for the institution reinvents the 19th-century Grands Magasins du Louvre<\/strong><\/a> as a mobile organism. Exposition G\u00e9n\u00e9rale, the inaugural exhibition<\/strong><\/a>, designed by Formafantasma<\/strong><\/a>, brings together over 600 works by more than 100 artists, including David Lynch<\/strong><\/a>, Claudia Andujar, Sarah Sze<\/strong><\/a>, Cai Guo-Qiang<\/strong><\/a>, Junya Ishigami<\/strong><\/a>, Giuseppe Penone<\/strong><\/a>, and Diller Scofidio + Renfro<\/strong><\/a> to map forty years of contemporary creation through a scenography<\/strong><\/a> that reactivates the very notion of what a museum can be.<\/p>\n

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Jean Nouvel\u2019s architectural transformation of the Fondation Cartier\u2019s new home<\/strong><\/a> reimagines a 19th-century Haussmannian landmark as a kinetic machine for art. Within the restored<\/strong><\/a> shell of the former Grands Magasins du Louvre, Nouvel introduces a system of five monumental moving platforms that rise and descend to endlessly reshape the exhibition spaces.<\/p>\n

\"jean
La Fondation Cartier pour l\u2019art contemporain, 2 place du Palais-Royal, Paris. \u00a9 Jean Nouvel \/ ADAGP, Paris, 2025 | all images \u00a9 Martin Argyroglo, unless stated otherwise<\/p>\n

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Inside Jean Nouvel\u2019s Transformative Design<\/p>\n

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Inside the historic Haussmannian shell, French architect<\/strong> <\/a>Jean Nouvel strips the structure back to its core, carving out vast, transparent voids where light and movement orchestrate the experience. Five monumental steel platforms, each a stage of 250 square meters and 250 tons, rise and fall on command, suspended by a cable-and-pulley system engineered in collaboration with specialists in bridge and theater design. These movable floors allow for infinite reconfigurations, forming an ever-changing topography of spaces that can expand, contract, or vanish entirely. \u2018Everything must be removed,\u2019 Nouvel had insisted early in the process,<\/strong> \u2018so that the gaze can pass through an unobstructed space.\u2019<\/p>\n

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The building<\/strong><\/a> behaves like a vast mechanical organism. Skylights become luminous floors, shutters slide like theatrical curtains to modulate daylight, and the distinction between inside and outside dissolves. Along the Saint-Honor\u00e9 facade, a 150-meter-long glass canopy connects Rue de Rivoli to the Palais-Royal, creating a sheltered pedestrian route. With its seven-meter-high windows and fluid circulation, the architecture transforms the site into a transparent urban stage, an \u2018exhibition machine\u2019 where Paris itself becomes part of the display.<\/p>\n

\"jean
the Fondation Cartier pour l\u2019Art Contemporain\u2019s new building opens on October 25th, 2025<\/p>\n

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formafantasma designs scenography for inaugural exhibition<\/p>\n

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Nouvel\u2019s design deliberately dialogues with the building\u2019s layered past. Constructed in 1855 for the first Paris World Fair, the former Grands Magasins du Louvre once hosted Expositions G\u00e9n\u00e9rales, grand showcases of industrial modernity. The Fondation Cartier\u2019s inaugural exhibition revives that spirit of discovery. Curated around four thematic constellations, Machines d\u2019architecture, \u00catre nature, Making Things, and Un monde r\u00e9el, the show brings together nearly 600 works by over 100 artists from the Fondation\u2019s collection, including David Lynch, Patti Smith, James Turrell, Claudia Andujar, Junya Ishigami, Sarah Sze, Cai Guo-Qiang, and Diller Scofidio + Renfro.<\/p>\n

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For this ambitious reopening, the scenography by Formafantasma extends Nouvel\u2019s architectural concept into a curatorial experiment that draws on the display systems of 19th-century trade fairs, the design collective reimagines the exhibition as a social and experimental field. Materials, lighting, and spatial rhythms evoke the heritage of the site while foregrounding the performative dimension of showing and seeing. Formafantasma positions artworks within a network of exchange between disciplines, eras, and worldviews.<\/p>\n

\"jean
reinventing the 19th-century Grands Magasins du Louvre as a mobile organism<\/p>\n

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four sections compose the Exposition G\u00e9n\u00e9rale show<\/p>\n

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The sections of Exposition G\u00e9n\u00e9rale unfold within the mechanical flexibility of Nouvel\u2019s architecture. Machines d\u2019architecture turns the first platform into an urban laboratory, where visionary designs and utopian models, from Alessandro Mendini\u2019s miniature cathedral to Freddy Mamani\u2019s vivid Sal\u00f3n de eventos, reimagine the city as a site of transformation. \u00catre nature shifts focus to the living world, transforming interior space into a sensorial ecosystem where Solange Pessoa\u2019s feathered installation hovers above works by Claudia Andujar, Giuseppe Penone, and Bernie Krause. Making Things traces the fluid boundaries between craft, design, and fine art, while Un monde r\u00e9el explores intersections of science, technology, and fiction through immersive works such as Sarah Sze\u2019s Tracing Falling Sky and Diller Scofidio + Renfro\u2019s data-driven EXIT.<\/p>\n

\"jean
Jean Nouvel reimagines a 19th-century Haussmannian landmark as a kinetic machine for art<\/p>\n

\"jean
transparent voids where light and movement orchestrate the experience<\/p>\n

\"jean
a system of five monumental moving platforms rise and descend to reshape the exhibition spaces<\/p>\n

\"jean
the Studio Marie-Claude Beaud<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Fondation Cartier pour l\u2019art contemporain reopens in paris \u00a0 The Fondation Cartier pour l\u2019Art Contemporain\u2019s new building, designed…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":124341,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[267],"tags":[11478,61139,365,362,363,364,366,18,117,72959,69531,19,17,50355,10911],"class_list":{"0":"post-124340","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arts-and-design","8":"tag-architecture-in-france","9":"tag-architecture-in-paris","10":"tag-arts","11":"tag-arts-and-design","12":"tag-artsanddesign","13":"tag-artsdesign","14":"tag-design","15":"tag-eire","16":"tag-entertainment","17":"tag-fondation-cartier","18":"tag-formafantasma","19":"tag-ie","20":"tag-ireland","21":"tag-jean-nouvel","22":"tag-renovation-and-restoration-architecture-and-design"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124340","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=124340"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124340\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/124341"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=124340"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=124340"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=124340"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}