When there is a perfect communion between a great architect and a great collector, the result can only be spectacular.
"In 2015, for the first time in many years, I returned to Paris, and it was quite by chance that I visited François Pinault",
tells the magician of the island of Naoshima, undisputed king of concrete and light, celebrated in Paris, at the Center Pompidou, in 2018. Without a long-standing complicity between the two men - after the first abortive project of the island Seguin, Tadao restored the Palazzo Grassi, rehabilitated the Punta della Dogana and recreated the Teatrino in Venice - nothing could have been done with such brilliance. The success of the Japanese intervention in this historic building in the heart of the capital is due to its complete restoration and its major transformation to become a contemporary art museum housing the collections of the Breton businessman. While infusing it with a very personal trademark: the insertion of a cylinder, a recurring shape in its architectures but totally reinvented and taken to its extreme,within a building with which it was necessary to compose.
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Faced with such a challenge, the choice of Tadao Ando was obvious.
Most certainly because he knows how to reconcile with a rare subtlety the dialogue between architecture and its context, the radicalism and the effacement of the gesture in front of a past larger than oneself.
To this was added the project management of the very young architects from the NeM agency, Lucie Niney and Thibault Marca, a duo describing themselves as
"overflowing with enthusiasm and having known how to question themselves, imbued with writing. d'Ando to change its look, such as making raw concrete more matte and giving it the soft appearance of velvet thanks to a delicate sandblasting ”.
Skillfully thought out, the architectural project born in 2016 and entrusted to Bouygues Construction was completed (despite a complete shutdown during confinement) thanks to the participation of the chief architect of Historical Monuments Pierre-Antoine Gatier, and to the endorsement by the National Commission for Historical Monuments and that of the Commission du Vieux Paris.
His knowledge of building,
"very well built and has never offered bad surprise
s
"
- former corn Nicolas Le Camus de Mezieres integrating Medicis column sixteenth century converted into stock market trade by Henri Blondel to late nineteenth century - was valuable.
“I went to Osaka in Ando's agency. It was an exceptional meeting to arrive at a perfect dialogue between heritage and architecture, matured by deep and sensitive reflections on the proportions of the cylinder, the distances with the existing, the heights to give a real tension to the place ”,
explains Pierre-Antoine Gatier.
"The important thing was to take a look around the whole building while being in the center under the dome",
adds the latter, who also unearthed the archives of the Walraf Museum including the unpublished and instructive drawings for the restoration of
Jacques Ignace Hittorff, the author of this cast iron and wrought iron dome under the direction of Bélanger.
A complete panorama of the dome
Entering the immense concrete cylinder that does not give the impression of a real circle in the center of the circular building, the shock is there. It is even more so at the top of the passageway sticking perfectly to the line of the dome bathed in incredible light and cleverly concealing the electrical system. From this passageway which, by its skilfully calculated height, makes it possible to hide the visitor, he is projected into the gigantic fresco painted in 1889 by five artists and representing French trade across the continents.
“The experience will be architectural, heritage and artistic at the same time,”
underlines Jean-Jacques Aillagon, general manager of the Pinault Collection.
Why is the cylinder inspired by that of the Pantheon in Rome, an ancient building lit by the oculus of its dome and vibrating to the rhythm of the sun's course, which made Ando measure, from the start of his career, this so delicate notion of '
"architectural space"
?
Revising the height of the circle several times to free up through views and offer, from the ground, a complete panorama of the dome, Ando chose it even more imposing, 9 meters high by 29 meters in diameter and 50 centimeters thick , whose function, of course, is to create an exhibition space, but also to form an abstract center of pure form at the heart of the building, going from the ground floor to the second floor.
The form means, according to the Japanese,
"Nothingness, and at the same time, in an apparently contradictory way, the whole".
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As in many of Ando's architectures, the visitor follows a route which gives him time to
“purify” himself.
Before entering the rotunda, he is encouraged to walk around its perimeter, to circulate at the rate of his desires, crossing or bypassing, going down towards the auditorium of 284 places with its black curtains or going up, in the floors, in the curved exhibition galleries but with more vertical volumes punctuated by picture rails, thus alternating the rhythms of large (620 m2 in the rotunda!) or smaller intimate spaces. In order not to harm the purity of the cylinder, the stairs are wrapped around to serve the different levels. While respecting the design of the so-called terrazzo mosaic floor, the space between the two circles has been widened to provide sufficient space for the contemplation of the historic facade and for ease of movement. A detail, but not that much, which changes everything ...
Tadao Ando designed an extraordinary project there while respecting a historic building that was just as incredible for the time.
Once again, he developed it with respect for traditions (its elements classified as interior facades, glass roofs, wooden windows, double-spiral staircase) and the requirements of modernity.
The whole building is a game between interior and exterior views, to let the magnificence of Paris burst into its splendor.
But, in the end, we only retain this incredible cylinder which so intelligently organizes the whole by offering magnificent visual escapes.
He is like a magnet to which we aspire to return.
Bouroullec style, between rusticity and delicacy
What will we see when arriving from the rue du Louvre? A bench, on which a
"rock"
slips
, serving as a hold for a vertical pole, carrying a flag without a pattern, without a weapon, with a shimmering effect, like a banner reminiscent of the golden summits of the monuments of Paris.
“It is this unusual character that emits a new sign, explain the Bouroullec brothers. This moving apparition is visible from afar, but with gentleness, elegance, without too much noise. A weather vane accompanies the movement of the flag, playing with the wind. "
It is with finesse that the famous duo of designers has fitted out the square and its surroundings: a ring of tubular benches in cuproaluminium (an alloy of copper and aluminum resistant to corrosion) arranged around the circular building, punctuated by three poles and articulated by lying rocks, a sort of beast-stones that one can climb or sit on.
Presence and restraint
Inside reigns an equally subtle spirit, a well thought out sobriety favoring the harmony of colors, the delicacy of the materials, a mixture of presence and restraint to let speak an already very strong 19th century architecture. The Bouroullecs spent many hours seeing and touching to understand the place and made a lot of models. They took care of the lighting, from the entrance hall to the stairwells where monumental chandeliers are suspended, about fifteen meters high, developed with Flos specifically for the Bourse de Commerce, on the idea of an object. very refined industrial, with a set lantern, a blown glass finely caged in metal. They have fine-tuned the acoustics for immediate comfort, such as in the reception area, slowing down airlock before starting the visit.
They favored materials of noble rusticity with, on the ground, rugs reminiscent of the bark of the undergrowth, mosses and lichens on a schist rock, covering the terrazzo.
This same vibrant weaving is stretched over minimal platforms, benches with enlarged proportions, a discreet technical feat of anodized aluminum, developed on the basis of one of their ranges of seats edited by Cassina.
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