Modular Vision

From the street, the new Fondation Cartier looks like a typical Haussmannian block, albeit a little plainer, and a lot longer than many of its neighbours. Housed in the former Grand Magasins de Louvre department store, across the road from the Musée de Louvre itself, the lobby has the tastefulness of a luxury goods boutique. But cast your eyes ahead into the museum, and you will see something very different. There are industrial concrete columns and dark metal ceilings. Some of the latter have ample skylights, covered in a bed of autumn leaves. But the building’s real innovation is more subtle, and can be perceived in the pulley systems at the corner of five rooms. 

Architect Jean Nouvel has created an almost completely modular museum. The main galleries sit on five enormous lifts. The 250 tonne floors can be raised and lowered to completely transform the 1,200 metre long gallery space. “It’s an unprecedented machinery,” says Ateliers Jean Nouvel studio director Mathieu Forest, “not the floor, not the walls, not the ceiling.” The skylights and windows can be closed. Retractable railings can be raised to stop visits from falling off platforms. The result is a building that can change each time you visit.

Fondation Cartier was founded in 1984 by the luxury goods company, with the aim of commissioning emerging and established artists and architects. It was previously housed in a Nouvel-designed structure on the Left Bank, a high-tech marvel. The move came out of a desire to exhibit the museum’s vast collection, much of which was purchased after previous exhibitions. The result is a sort of alternative history of contemporary art, one which often shies away from market darlings in favour of practitioners the Fondation has found worth supporting.

The first exhibition, Exposition Générale, is testament to this approach. Named after expo-esque displays at the Grand Magasins, it demonstrates a global and interdisciplinary approach. Designed by Formafantasma, one of its sections focuses on the overlap between art and architecture. The first room contains Bodys Isek Kingelez’s maquettes of utopian cities and a chapel by postmodernist pioneer Alessandro Mendini. Later one encounters a film by storied New York practice Diller Scofidio + Renfro and a room-size installation by the Bolivian architect Freddy Mamani.

This construction is one of many artworks visible from the street. As well as modularity, Nouvel’s design spotlights transparency. Frameless windows allow passersby to peer in — and visitors to peer out. As Fondation Carter managing director Chris Dercon says: “It’s not just a machine that lets you see inside the building, but it’s a machine from which to see the neighbourhood.” This is a bold, even radical inversion of the conventional museum. These tend to function as sanctuaries away from the bustle of the surrounding city, squirrelling the art away. Foundation Cartier and Nouvel have instead decided to embrace the metropole. 

Despite this openness, the Fondation includes numerous nooks and crannies; Nouvel’s design manages the rare feat of feeling both clearly organised and labyrinthine. There are dark spaces for films, as well as a 110-seat auditorium entirely coloured in Nouvel’s characteristic scarlet, with elegant Poltrona Frau seating. A bar, restaurant and education centre are slated to open next year. Overall 8,500 square metres will be accessible to the public, with 6,500 square metres of that exhibition space. It is all set to become one of Paris’s crowning glories.