Cartier Foundation Paris, Building, Architect, Address, Design, Date

Cartier Foundation Paris : Architecture

Jean Nouvel Building Paris, France

30 Mar 2010

Fondation Cartier pour l’Art Contemporain

Fondation Cartier pour l’Art Contemporain / Cartier Foundation Paris
Address: 261 boulevard Raspail, Paris
Date built: 1991-95
Design: Jean Nouvel Architect with Emanuel Cattani et Associés

Intriguing building that plays games with layers of translucent screens to ask what is building and what is not? Existing mature trees on the site, south of the centre of Paris, are imaginatively integrated.

image © Jean Nouvel ; photograph: Philippe Ruault

Contact: +33 1 4218 5651

Cartier Foundation architects : Jean Nouvel

Location: south of the city centre, not far south-west from the Pantheon

Fondation Cartier pour l’Art Contemporain, Paris – Building Description

This building is a joy to behold. It challenges our ideas of what a building is and what it can be. Transparent and translucent layers of glass and steel contain mature trees and gallery spaces. Nouvel’s light touch in this building is a world away from say the Theatre Granit. Many of his other buildings use a much darker and richer palette, eg the Lucerne Culture and Congress Centre and more recently Nouvel’s extension to the Reina Sofía in Madrid. He tends to use the same massive cantilever form with a beautifully fine edge profile (ie the roof is trussed to show a fine edge from angles below), again as per the two buildings cited above.

Location: 261 boulevard Raspail, Paris, France