In the heart of Paris, a futuristic vessel by Jean Nouvel for the Cartier Foundation

Both a cathedral and an industrial ocean liner, where trees seem to greet visitors through a glass ceiling, it was designed as "a journey into the future" and "a museum of the 79st century", declared Jean Nouvel, XNUMX, when presenting his work on Friday.

The whole, 150 meters long and with facades that will be entirely transparent, is inserted under the arcades of a Haussmannian building with exteriors classified as a historic monument, which is none other than the former Louvre of antique dealers.

Only the presence of a gigantic cube covered in mirrors facing the Louvre Museum, Place du Palais-Royal, betrays the work in progress, which began in 2020 and whose cost is estimated at "230 million euros", according to Alain Dominique Perrin, president of the foundation.

The Cartier Foundation for Contemporary Art, which is celebrating its 40th anniversary and was a pioneer in France in this sector, is due to move there at the end of 2025, opposite the largest museum in the world and a stone's throw from the Ministry of Culture, not far from the Bourse de Commerce, which has housed the contemporary art collection of businessman François Pinault since 2021.

Aircraft carrier

Built with contemporary materials such as recycled steel and concrete, the building will have 8.500 m2 accessible to the public, including 6.500 m2 of exhibition space, installed largely on five mobile platforms, whose design borrows as much from "that of aircraft carriers as from the theater", according to the architect.

They allow, thanks to a lifting system inspired by that which exists for mobile bridges or aircraft carriers, to modify the exhibition surfaces and the routes within the building, to make them rise or fall according to the installations, "thanks to verticalities of up to 11 meters in height", specified Mathieu Forest, project director.

"These are very generous spaces to allow contemporary artists to play with the large scale, with several stages and several exhibitions to correspond to stagings that are not those of a traditional museum," commented Mr. Nouvel, who had already designed the all-glass building that still houses the foundation on Boulevard Raspail, in the 14th arrondissement of the capital.

"Art from the street"

"These voids, which seem random, can be very different. All the holes that we will see vertically on the two streets (which run alongside the future premises on each side, Editor's note) will allow us to look at our prestigious neighbors with this presence of art that can be seen from the street," he added.

The new Cartier Foundation will also house an educational space with a surface area of ​​300 m2, an auditorium with 120 seats, a bookstore and a restaurant.

According to Mr. Perrin, it should exhibit "between 600 and 800 works of art from the collection" which includes 4.500, produced by more than 500 French and international artists, from pioneers like César to African painting, from Japanese architecture to Italian design or drawings by Native American artists, from masters of American photography to young European visual artists.

In 40 years, the foundation, founded in Jouy-en-Josas (Yvelines) in 1984, has organized "more than 300 exhibitions in France and abroad" and hosted nearly 1.000 "nomadic evenings" with artists in all artistic fields, including the comedy troupe Les Deschiens at its beginnings, recalled its president.

Her latest exhibition on Boulevard Raspail (16th arrondissement), which runs until March XNUMX, is the first major retrospective in Paris devoted to Colombian textile artist Olga de Amaral.