Jean Nouvel and the Fondation Cartier at Venice Biennale 2025

As part of the 19th International Architecture Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia, the Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain presents a landmark exhibition titled The Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain by Jean Nouvel.

On view till September 14, 2025, at the Fondazione Giorgio Cini, this Collateral Event of the Biennale offers a deep dive into the transformative architectural vision conceived by Jean Nouvel for the Fondation Cartier’s new home at 2 Place du Palais-Royal in Paris. The project, slated to open to the public in October 2025, marks a pivotal moment in the institution’s ongoing commitment to architecture as a living, responsive, and multidisciplinary space.

Since its founding in 1984, the Fondation Cartier has placed architecture at the heart of its curatorial mission. This began with its iconic headquarters on Boulevard Raspail, inaugurated in 1994, a building designed by Jean Nouvel that remains a benchmark in contemporary museum architecture. Characterised by its transparency, glass and steel structure, and porous integration with its surrounding environment, the Raspail building challenged the conventions of institutional design.

Three decades later, the Fondation once again turns to Nouvel to reimagine its physical and conceptual framework. The new building is located in a 19th-century Haussmannian structure at 2 Place du Palais-Royal, adjacent to the Louvre and steeped in Parisian history. This transformation is not merely a change of address but a redefinition of what a contemporary cultural institution can be.

Inside the Exhibition: A Preview of What is to Come

The exhibition at the Fondazione Giorgio Cini immerses visitors in the design and philosophy behind the upcoming Paris space. At the center of the exhibition is a large-scale sectional model of the new Fondation Cartier. This model reveals Jean Nouvel’s groundbreaking approach: a modular interior composed of five movable platforms that can be adjusted independently to various heights. This allows curators and artists to generate an infinite variety of spatial configurations—offering extraordinary flexibility to accommodate visual art, performance, science, technology, and philosophical discourse.

Accompanying the model are full-scale photographs, architectural drawings, digital projections, and physical prototypes. These materials bring to life the experience of the interior landscape of the new Fondation. Highlights include retractable ceilings that filter and modulate natural light, mechanical guardrails that reshape internal perspectives, and massive picture windows that visually connect the interior to the streets of Paris.

Visitors to the exhibition also encounter a glass engraving of the Fondation Cartier’s original Raspail building, as well as a video installation showcasing Jean Nouvel’s extensive history of museographic projects. Together, these elements provide historical continuity and underline Nouvel’s contextualist approach—architecture that responds not just to function, but to the spirit of its location.

A Cultural Dialogue Between Cities

The exhibition is deeply engaged with its Venetian setting. Located in the Fondazione Giorgio Cini, the show invites visitors to look through windows framing the lagoon and San Giorgio Maggiore beyond. This setting mirrors the new Fondation Cartier’s placement in the heart of historic Paris, creating a subtle dialogue between two cultural capitals. The superimposition of the exhibition within Venice’s museum-city echoes the integration of Nouvel’s architecture into Paris’s dense historical landscape.

The Haussmannian building at 2 Place du Palais-Royal is itself a site of layered histories—once the Grand Hôtel du Louvre (1855), then transformed into the Grands Magasins du Louvre (1887–1974). Jean Nouvel preserves its façade while radically altering its interior. Seven-meter-high picture windows extend visual axes from Rue de Rivoli to Rue Saint-Honoré. Glass canopies reinterpret traditional Parisian arcades, and suspended gardens bring a natural dimension to the space, reflecting the nearby Palais Royal gardens.

The Museum as a Tool for Change

This exhibition doesn’t present architecture as a finished product, but as a medium for creative evolution. Nouvel imagines the new Fondation Cartier not as a fixed structure, but as an adaptive instrument—a museum that behaves like a machine or a stage, responsive to artistic intent. With its scalable volumes, controlled lighting, and mobile platforms, the building is conceived as a dynamic framework that invites transformation.

Architectural theorists have underscored the significance of this approach. Beatriz Colomina describes Nouvel’s work as a “machine for seeing,” one that reshapes the viewer’s experience with every shift. Antoine Picon likens the design to theatrical rigging, where architecture becomes an actor in its own right. This performative, responsive ethos marks a radical departure from conventional museum architecture.

Documenting a Transformation

To coincide with the opening of the new Fondation Cartier in October 2025, a major bilingual monograph will be published. This volume will explore the conceptual, technical, and urban aspects of Jean Nouvel’s design. Contributions from leading voices including Jean Nouvel, Beatriz Colomina, Antoine Picon, and Béatrice Grenier will be featured, alongside photographic documentation by Martin Argyroglo and Danica O. Kus. The monograph aims to serve as a lasting record of the Fondation’s architectural journey and the ideas shaping its new identity.

The Fondation Cartier’s engagement with architecture is part of a broader curatorial ethos. Over the years, it has collaborated with architects and artists across the globe to question the boundaries between disciplines. Notable examples include exhibitions with Bijoy Jain, Junya Ishigami, and Diller Scofidio + Renfro, as well as installations by Freddy Mamani and Solano Benítez. The Fondation also serves as a Global Cultural Partner of The World Around, contributing to discourse on architecture and design across geographies.

In this context, the collaboration with Jean Nouvel—spanning nearly 40 years—represents both a continuity and a new frontier. The forthcoming Fondation Cartier at Place du Palais-Royal is not merely a new building; it is an experimental laboratory, a civic stage, and a catalyst for creative evolution.

By staging this ambitious preview in Venice, the Fondation Cartier reaffirms its commitment to architecture not just as a container for culture, but as a force that shapes it. Jean Nouvel’s project invites us to imagine museums not as static monuments, but as fluid, interactive environments—constantly in dialogue with their cities, their audiences, and their time.

Picture Credits: Martin Argyroglo