Fondation Cartier

A gigantic wall of glass. Splendid in the setting sun, we notice the Foundation from afar, the work of 300 artists contribute to a collection which can boast more than a million works of art since its creation in 1984. Ten years later, it was moved to the boulevard Raspail to occupy 1,200 meters – with exposition halls on six floors, three of which house offices. It was architect Jean Nouvel, the co-creator of the colossal Institut du Monde Arabe (see p 115) who worked on this plan. The garden of his “palace of glass” favours a tree which is important for historic and literary amateurs: a Lebanese Cedar planted by Châteaubriand in 1823. What is striking is the transparency of the place, Nouvel’s fetish “material”, symbolised by the omnipresence of glass: “Each exposition modifies the building and involves the passerby, who sees the pieces between the reflection of clouds and urban space “. Patti Smith, Raymond Depardon and David Lynch all agree.