Fondation Cartier pour
l'Art Contemporain
261 boulevard Raspail
75014 Paris
France
Jean Nouvel, Emanuel Cattani et
Associés, 1994
Nouvel's gallery for the
Fondation Cartier is an exercise in transparency and the perennial quest
to remove the barrier between inside and outside. A building 'box' with
glass walls would not do the trick: you could see through the walls, but
you would be clearly either inside or outside the box. In the Fondation
Cartier Nouvel has extended the glass walls beyond the box, creating extra
tall glass planes in the wild-flower garden, and extending the glass
facade several meters above the roof terrace. At the edge of the plot he
has created a whole extra glass plane as the street facade, wholly
separate from the main box of the building.
The excuse for this extra glass
wall is a 200-year old, celebrated Lebanese cedar, planted by
Chateaubriand (1768-1848), which is 'framed by two glass screens that form
a gate'. Barbara-Ann Campbell enthuses about this idea:
'The sheet-glass facades of
the building extend beyond its structure, blurring its boundaries and
denying the reading of a solid volume... The trees acquire a similarly
ambiguous presence as it is unclear whether they are inside or outside.
The trees are read behind a transparent fence instead of an opaque wall,
and are embodied in the building by means of the 8-meter-high sliding
windows to the exhibition space which can be entirely removed in summer,
undressing the structure to reveal the columns. This allows the
exhibition to slide into the park and vice versa. The building is
a refracting series of superimpositions of sky, trees and reflected
trees. Nouvel and his team have tried to bottle the mystery that belongs
to a secret, walled garden between these glass layers.'
Which would be fine, if the
Fondation Cartier were a tree museum. For a contemporary art museum,
however, it is hard to conceive of a less suitable design. At the time of
my visit, the main exhibition on the ground floor was composed entirely of
videos and other illuminated art works, requiring temporary walls inside
the glass to block out the transparency, or the exhibits would have been
invisible. The resulting front facade (below) could perhaps be
described as undressed, but only to reveal some rather unsightly
underwear.
The redeeming feature of this
building is the elegant detailing of the rear facade: stylish office space
with behind the glass wall overlooking the garden, reached by a set of
elevators that climb the side of the building gracefully and silently,
without wires or cages.
Simon Glynn, 2001
How to visit
The Fondation Cartier is on the
east side of the boulevard Raspail in the 14th Arrondissement. Either walk
North from Denfert-Rochereau (RER Line B or Metro lines 4 and 6) or walk
South from Raspail (Metro lines 4 and 6).
The exhibition floors are open
to the public daily from 12 noon. To check for opening times call their
recorded information line on +33 1 42 18 56 51. For other information call
+33 1 42 18 56 72.
