Pandemic or not, a major new contemporary art gallery is opening in Paris

It’s certainly a bold time to open new museum, but even a global pandemic isn’t enough to deter the team behind a blockbuster new contemporary art museum that’s about to open in Paris, La Bourse de Commerce – Pinault Collection.

The museum has been in the pipeline since 2015, when François Pinault was invited by the Mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, to consider the Bourse de Commerce as the Parisian home for his art collection. At the beginning of the 21st century, he’d set up the Pinault Collection in Venice, at Palazzo Grassi and Punta Della Dogana.

However, the Bourse de Commerce needed to undergo a complete restoration that was, as Pinault puts it, “worthy of its rich history” before it was anywhere near becoming a contemporary art museum.

Tadao Ando was brought in for the challenge, who’d worked with Pinault on a number of previous projects. He was the ideal candidate thanks to his reputation for a minimalist aesthetic sensibility that blends “rigour and purity”, as Pinault says. “Tadao Ando is one of the few architects in the world who can establish a subtle dialogue between form and time, between architecture and its era, as he has so convincingly demonstrated in Venice,” he adds.

The architectural designs use the geometrical form of a circle within a circle to create “A world that respects the past, celebrates the present, and embraces the future.”

The project was overseen by Jean-Jacques Aillagon, who describes the objective as being returning the building to its original splendour and freeing up as much space as possible for cultural activities while giving visitors comfortable space and opportunity to move around the exhibition spaces and public areas. Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec were commissioned to create the urban and interior furnishings of the museum and its restaurant. Lucie Niney and Thibaut Marca of NeM agency and Pierre-Antoine Gatier were also key in creating the museum, which aims to open up “an original dialogue” between the traditional and the contemporary.

Pinault’s collection comprises more than 10,000 works by almost 380 artists including paintings, sculptures, videos, photographs, sound pieces, installations and performances. The works were created between 1960 until the present, and are going to be on show complemented by temporary themed shows and solo exhibitions as well as new commissions and site-specific projects, as well as a rolling programme of 15 projects each year. The first season of exhibitions and events, set to open in spring 2021, will be titled Opening.

The Bourse de Commerce features ten exhibition galleries as well as other public areas including a 284-seat auditorium. The galleries can be used to house different shows, or as a single vast exhibition across the entire space. A basement area, described as a “black box” and named The Studio, was designed with video and sound artworks in mind; and the Foyer area surrounding the auditorium will be used to stage performances, installations and more.

Comfort, a sense of welcome and practical accessibility concerns were at the heart of the spacial design; all the while forming a new space that sits in “calm dialogue with heritage.” According to the museum, the overall vibe looks to “respect both works and visitors, whatever their level of relationship with creation or their experience of contemporary art, or their expertise and understanding of the works.”