Fondation Cartier pour l’Art Contemporain
Paris’s newest top temple of art is here and it’s already a must-see. Fondation Cartier is leaving its iconic location in Boulevard Raspail to move… directly across the Musée du Louvre.
After more than five years of renovations, the former Louvre des Antiquaires has been transformed. The building, designed by Jean Nouvel, is worth a visit in itself.
Five huge moving platforms where the floors and ceilings adapt to the artworks and their size, not the other way around.
In the heart of Paris, light and glass breathe together as the new home of Fondation Cartier pour l’Art Contemporain.
Through its architecture, collection and the pulse of contemporary voices, it has become not just an emblem of art but a lyrical tribute to creation, risk and encounter. Let us wander its history, treasures and future.
This new site allows the name Cartier to echo, both the jeweller and the Foundation, entwined in the fabric of cultural patronage.
Louis‑François Cartier – Genesis of patronage
In 1847 Louis‑François Cartier (1819-1904) founded what would become the internationally renowned Maison Cartier, when he took over the workshop from his master Adolphe Picard.
He married Antoinette Guermonprez in 1840 and fathered several children ensuring the business handover to the next generation.
Under Louis-François, the atelier moved into the luxury milieu of Place du Palais-Royal (1853) and later toBoulevard des Italiens (1859).
His son Alfred (1841-1925) entered the family business. His grandsons: Louis, Pierre and Jacques expanded the firm globally and secured Cartier’s place as jeweller to kings.
Within this biography, we sense the seeds of patronage: precision, materials, innovation and taste.
Although the Foundation is independent from Maison Cartier, the heritage and the ethos overlap: the desire to create, attract luminance and invest in vision.
La Fondation Cartier pour l’Art Contemporain was created in 1984 by Alain‑Dominique Perrin, President of Cartier International. It was one of the first in France dedicated to Modern Art.
Its ambition was broad: highlighting established artists, supporting younger voices, cross disciplines and challenging traditional museum models.
Originally, since 1984, it was housed in Paris suburb Jouy-en-Josas. In 1994 it moved into a new glass and steel building designed by Jean Nouvel on Boulevard Raspail in Montparnasse.
The architecture of Fondation Cartier has always been part of its narrative. Nouvel’s construction is based entirely on lightness, glass and finely-woven steel, blurring inside and outside.
October 2025 was the inauguration of the new headquarters at Palais-Royal, a historic palace originally built by Georges Haussmann for the 1855 Exposition Universelle.
In recent transformation, Jean Nouvel creates moving platforms, transparent roofs and open façades to create an innovative Museum that evolves with its collection and the city.
Worldwide spirit of the collection
The collection has grown over four decades. It includes 4,500 works by 500 artists of more than 60 nationalities.
For the opening, an amazing exhibition sets the tone, from nature to technology with a sophisticated mix of artists. It is a richly eclectic multidisciplinary selection: installations, video, sculpture, photographic work, design, architecture, sound…
It gathers great works evolving the map of global contemporary creation, interweaving voices from Europe, America, Asia, Africa and Oceania.
It features artist like Bodys Isek Kingelez, Alessandro Mendini, Steven Hollenbeck, Diller Scofidio+Renfro, Junya Ishigami…
Among the most striking works shine James Turrell’s radiant Skeet, Sarah Sze’s intricate Everything That Rises Must Converge, Bodys Isek Kingelez’s visionary city-models and Olga de Amaral’s shimmering golden weavings.
James Turrell shows again after presenting his radiant installation Skeet as part of a 1993 Cartier exhibition.
Sarah Sze also worked before at Cartier. She held her first solo exhibition in 1999: Everything That Rises Must Converge.
Other captivating pieces are Junya Ishigami’s ethereal architectural models, David Lynch’s haunting surreal drawings and Guillermo Kuitca’s cartographic paintings.
Each art piece transforms space, memory and emotion into poetic visual architecture within the new luminous halls.
Spaces at the Fondation Cartier
Over the years Fondation Cartier has had a number of sites each one completely unique:
- Jouy-en-Josas (1984-1994) – Early home, modest but pioneering.
- Boulevard Raspail (1994-2025) – The glass cube by Jean Nouvel, surrounded by gardens, exhibited international artists and installations.
- Place du Palais-Royal (from October 2025) – The new flagship in central Paris, opening 25 October 2025 marks the best celebration marking 40 years of Fondation Cartier.
Imagine walking into the new Palais‐Royal: the stone façade of mid-19th century Paris meets steel and glass, light pouring down, moving platforms rising and falling like tides of cultural possibilities.
The artworks breathe: a James Turrell light-space envelope dissolves architecture; Sarah Sze constellation of objects expands time; Olga de Amaral tapestries thread history and craft.
In these walls we feel the legacy of Louis-François Cartier’s workshop, his quest for new forms, his passage into luxury and global presence.
His world of metal, gemstone, precision and movement echoes today in La Fondation’s devotion to craft, to object, to the threshold between art and life.
This new art space is not simply a repository, but a living laboratory. It invites dialogue between design and art, melting architecture and nature, everyday objects and conceptual abyss.
The innovative building and groundbreaking exhibition, signal a renewal. Art is not a pedestal, but a crossroads.
Glass, light and collected voices of new generations of artists, speak of meaning, transformation and beauty borne of risk.
These art masterpieces illuminate the Cartier spirit, melding light, architecture and imagination, inviting viewers into realms where perception, material and dream elegantly intertwine.
Wandering the new home of Fondation Cartier, we think of the jeweller-founder in his 19th-century Parisian workshop. We appreciate an art collection that spans generations, continents and media. We celebrate Jean Nouvel’s architecture that dares to move and reinvent art.
Exhibitions
- PARIS: “Exposition Générale” –
- A sweeping retrospective of the collection, nearly 600 works by over 100 artists, inaugurates the new building.
- 25 Oct 2025 – 23 Aug 2026
