Step inside the new Fondation Cartier Pour L’Art Contemporain in Paris, located in a former department store on rue de Rivoli.
The new Fondation Cartier Pour L’Art Contemporain in Paris, like its predecessor, has been designed by Jean Nouvel, the architect of such modern landmarks as the Institut du Monde Arabe in Paris and the National Museum of Qatar in Doha. When the French Pritzker Prize winner, now 80, first met with foundation president Alain Dominique Perrin to discuss the project, he recalls, “I knew what Monsieur Perrin wanted: a monument for Paris.”
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It was a long time coming. Twelve years ago, Perrin zeroed in on the cavernous building, a 19th-century hotel turned department store on the rue de Rivoli, which, for the last four decades, had served as a mall for antiques dealers. Once he determined it would be the perfect spot for Fondation Cartier’s future, larger home, Perrin took Nouvel for a site visit. Immediately, the architect understood that the strength of the building, known as Grands Magasins du Louvre, was its length. “The same as the Centre Pompidou,” he pointed out during a recent tour. But he also saw the key challenge: “It was so dark inside. And it needed depth. We had to find different heights and light. We wanted to create a perspective that permits us to see where we are.”
To achieve that, Nouvel designed a vast 70,000-square-foot atrium with five mobile platforms that can rise as high as 36 feet, modifying the surface area. “They are stages in a sense,” he said. These movable features will give curators and artists the freedom to install works of all shapes and sizes, as well as create different pathways through exhibitions. “That’s what we wanted to play with,” the architect said. “Not walls and walls and walls.”
Nouvel framed the airy galleria with nearly 13,000 square feet of walkways (or “passages,” as he calls them) on three floors, offering visitors bird’s-eye views of the art on display. At the time of our tour, every surface was in tones of gray – neutrals that could be overpainted in whatever hues the artists want for their shows. The only exception was the auditorium, permanently cocooned in a crimson hue that invokes Cartier red. “There is a presence that is constant,” says Nouvel, “and one that is created for the art.”
Nouvel situated Fondation Cartier’s entrance on the building’s shorter west side, along the regal Place du Palais-Royal, so that when visitors arrive, they are struck by the enormity of the space. To bring in more light, he concentrated on the department store’s street-facing vitrines on rue de Rivoli. The bay windows create a fishbowl-like effect: Those inside can watch pedestrians and traffic zip by, the majestic Musée du Louvre looming in the background, while passersby can peer in and get a glimpse of what’s on display. The opening show, which runs through August 23, 2026, features 600 works by more than 100 artists that have been previously exhibited by the foundation during its 41-year existence.
As Nouvel took the completed building all in, he seemed pleased with the final result. “It’s an extraordinary space for contemporary art that has a liaison with life,” he said. “Like a continuity.” Find out more.
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