A Building Inside a Building [VIDEO]

A tour of the new Jean Nouvel–designed Fondation Cartier building and its inaugural exhibition.

By Michael KurcfeldFebruary 28, 2026

• Art & Architecture

Text by LARB Staff. Video by Michael Kurcfeld. 

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ABOVE ALL, A REFUSAL of repetition has been the defining thread in the career of architect Jean Nouvel. Born in 1945 in Fumel, France, Nouvel studied at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris and emerged in the 1970s as a provocative, intellectually ambitious voice within European architecture. Early in his career, he co-founded the collective Mars 1976, positioning himself not only as a designer but also as a critic of architectural orthodoxies. From the outset, he rejected a signature style; instead, he has argued, each project should arise from its specific cultural, urban, and climatic context.

Nouvel achieved international recognition with the Institut du monde arabe (1987) in Paris, whose south facade deploys mechanical apertures inspired by moucharaby screens to modulate light. The project established his fascination with technological mediation and atmospheric effects, themes he would continue to explore in later works such as the Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain (1994) in Paris, the Torre Agbar (2005) in Barcelona, and the Louvre Abu Dhabi (2017). Few living architects have enjoyed quite as many major commissions as Nouvel, and in 2008 he was awarded the Pritzker Architecture Prize, which cited his “insatiable urge for creative experimentation” and his capacity to challenge architectural conventions while producing works of powerful civic presence.

Central to Nouvel’s sensibility is an understanding of architecture as a perceptual experience rather than a fixed object. Glass, reflection, shadow, and layering frequently dissolve boundaries between interior and exterior, building and landscape. Rather than imposing form, he orchestrates conditions: light filtered through patterned screens, facades that reflect sky and city, volumes that blur into gardens or water.

The history of the Fondation Cartier itself is inseparable from this architectural ethos. Established in 1984 by the eponymous French luxury goods company, the Fondation was initially located in Jouy-en-Josas before relocating, in 1994, to Boulevard Raspail in Paris, where Nouvel’s layered glass planes and recessed volumes sought to establish a dialogue between art, city, and garden, framing exhibitions within reflections of trees and passing traffic.

Three decades later, Nouvel has again been entrusted with shaping the Fondation’s home, this time renovating an Haussmannian former grand hotel and department store, opposite the Louvre, that opened to the public late last year. Michael Kurcfeld sat down with co-curator Béatrice Grenier to discuss Nouvel’s design and the inaugural exhibition, Exposition générale, which runs through August 2026.