Opposite the Louvre, a new Cartier Foundation designed by Jean Nouvel

With its all-glass facades and 8.500 m2 of public spaces, including 6.500 m2 of exhibition space, the Foundation is part of a former Haussmann-style complex that housed the Louvre of antique dealers under its arcades.

It faces the prestigious Louvre museum, which has been in the midst of a political and media storm since the spectacular theft of the Crown Jewels on Sunday.

The Foundation, funded by luxury jeweler Cartier (Richemont group), hopes to take advantage of the flow of visitors to the world's most visited museum (nine million in 2024) to "increase its attendance, meet the expectations of its fans but also of a new public," its director, Belgian Chris Dercon, explained to AFP.

Located in the heart of a "legendary" cultural axis composed of the "Louvre, the Comédie Française, the Museum of Decorative Arts and the Bourse de Commerce" which houses the private art collection of businessman François Pinault, the new building "is worthy of the scale of the collection and its history," adds Mr. Dercon.

It will present, in rotation, around 600 works by a hundred contemporary artists belonging to the foundation's collection, created in 1984 and which has around 4.500 in total.

Among them are the British Damian Hirst, the Americans David Lynch, Joan Mitchell and Patti Smith, as well as the Congolese Chéri Samba and the French photographers Raymond Depardon and Malian Malick Sidibé.

"Crossing the Future"

Both a cathedral and an industrial ocean liner, where trees seem to greet visitors through a glass ceiling, the Foundation was designed as "a journey into the future" and "a museum of the 21st century," declared Jean Nouvel, 80, when he presented it a year ago.

With five mobile steel platforms allowing the modulation of space and light, its design borrows as much from "that of aircraft carriers as from the theater," according to the famous architect.

Among the technical challenges faced, floors of 250 m2 on average and 250 tonnes each were installed in an existing and constrained space.

The building also has an educational space, an auditorium, a bookstore and a catering area.

The total cost was estimated at "230 million euros" by Alain Dominique Perrin, president of the foundation.

The first exhibition, entitled "General Exhibition," opens Saturday. It traces the collection's journey through emblematic works and events that have marked the history of the foundation, which was founded in Jouy-en-Josas (Yvelines).

Jean Nouvel had already designed his first Parisian building, all in glass, located in the 14th arrondissement and inaugurated in 1994, which had become "a little too small", according to Mr. Dercon.

Since its creation, the foundation has organized "more than 300 exhibitions in France and abroad" and hosted nearly 1.000 "nomadic evenings" with artists from all artistic fields, including the comedy troupe Les Deschiens in its early days.

The latest exhibition in its former building, where the lease expires in 2026, attracted 220.000 visitors around the Colombian textile artist Olga de Amaral.