16 - Cartier Foundation

16 - Cartier Foundation - Jean Nouvel, Emmanuel Cattani - 1994

261 Bd Raspail, Paris

In 1994, after ten years spent in Jouy-en-Josas, the Fondation Cartier moved into the airy glass and steel building in central Paris designed by Nouvel (France, 1945) and Cattani (Switzerland, 19511997). Very little information can be found about their partnership, except that it lasted from 1988 to 1994.

The building consists of three parallel glazed planes. The first extends the perspective of the boulevard and isolates it from the street. The second is that of the front façade, but it is deliberately larger, blurring its boundaries. The third is that of the rear façade, which is just as well planned as the front, featuring office space that overlooks the garden and a set of elevators that slide up the side without the use of wires or cages. Sticking to the image of luxury and excellence of the Cartier brand, this “technological” building is entirely transparent, and has been described as a “phantom in a park” due the transparence and alternately real or virtual reflections of the glass. It gives a glimpse of the works, the garden or can reflect the sky. Another concept of this design is dematerialization, which is taken to the extreme through the innovative uses and functions of the glass and steel. The building is comprised of 650 tons of steel, and 5,000 square meters of glass. Large, flexible areas that are used as exhibition spaces are made possible by the structural beams which span sixteen meters without intermediate columns. There are a total of seventeen stories of floor space, although only nine are above ground.

Nouvel employs his usual dedication to transparency and rigor of the surface for Cartier. As a public space that houses contemporary art and graffiti exhibitions, the play between inside and out is very fitting as it creates an openness which invites people to experience the building from up close and afar. This is incorporated into the 8-meter-high windows that separate the gallery from the outdoors, which are removable allowing for a fusion of space. This discreet and immaterial architecture is one of the most interesting constructions of the end of the century in Paris. 80