The Architecture of Exhibition

Exposition Générale
Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain
25.10.2025-23.08.2026

The Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain opens a new chapter with its relocation to Place du Palais-Royal, directly facing the Louvre. Housed in a historic Haussmannian building reimagined by Jean Nouvel, the space is conceived as a dynamic architectural device that places experimentation and dialogue at the core of the exhibition experience.

The inaugural exhibition, Exposition Générale, celebrates over forty years of contemporary creation through key works from the Fondation’s history. The exhibition design is entrusted to long-standing Flos collaborators Formafantasma, who draw on the site’s history as a space of display and approach the architecture not as a neutral backdrop, but as a spatial device that challenges conventional structures.

In collaboration with Formafantasma, Flos designed two bespoke luminaires to structure the space as much as illuminate it. Within the framework of a modular exhibition system, light becomes a tool for orientation, guiding visitors through an architecture defined by shifting platforms, variable heights and overlapping sightlines.

Conceived as contemporary lanterns, the Flos luminaires divide the space while steering visitors through the exhibition. The suspension lamp acts as an imposing vertical beacon, immediately drawing the eye. Its soft, evenly diffused light functions as a spatial marker while remaining visually permeable.

Accompanying visitors at a narrative level, the wall lamp pairs a lightweight frame with textile surfaces that carry texts and descriptions. Flos lighting fits harmoniously with Formafantasma’s design and Jean Nouvel’s architecture, affirming the role of light in contemporary exhibition design, where illumination is inseparable from experience.