Nouvel's design, as ever, is a study in precision and paradox. The architect–who also created Fondation Cartier's original glass-and-steel building on Boulevard Raspail in 1994– now turns his gaze toward history. Here, his intervention is subtler yet more radical: a palimpsest of the old and new. The façade of the Haussmannian block remains intact, but behind it unfolds a sequence of light-filled volumes, vast windows, and suspended platforms that seem to hover between floors.
Exposition Générale revives the building's 19th-century spirit. The title itself nods to the Expositions Générales once held in this very place–precursors to the World Fairs that showcased modernity's wonders. Fondation Cartier's curators, Grazia Quaroni and Béatrice Grenier, reinterpret that ethos of discovery for the 21st century. Their exhibition functions like a contemporary grand magasin of ideas, where ceramics sit beside photography, indigenous Amazonian art beside Western conceptualism, and textiles converse with video installations.
Grenier echoes her colleague's enthusiasm for this expanded field. "The scenography explores the volumes of Nouvel's dynamic architecture," she said. "Inspired by his design, Formafantasma created floating spaces that enable new relationships between works."
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