The Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain by Jean Nouvel 2 Place du Palais-Royal, Paris

Following studies at the École supérieure des beaux-arts de Bordeaux, Jean Nouvel (1945, Fumel, France) entered the École nationale supérieure des beaux-arts de Paris, graduating in 1971. His first job was as assistant to the architect Claude Parent. He then worked with the urbanist and essayist Paul Virilio before opening his own practice in 1970. Jean Nouvel’s approach to architecture—guided by context, history, and culture of the site—has brought him international renown. After his first major project in Paris, the Institut du Monde Arabe (1987), he has designed many architectural projects around the world : the Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain Boulevard Raspail (Paris, 1994), the Louvre Abu Dhabi museum (Abu Dhabi, 2017), or the Museum of Art Pudong in Shanghai (Shanghai, 2021). In late 2025, another project was inaugurated in Paris, the new spaces of the Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain at 2 Place du Palais-Royal.

Beatriz Colomina is the Howard Crosby Butler Professor of the History of Architecture, the Director of Graduate Studies in the School of Architecture, and the founding director of the Interdisciplinary Media and Modernity program at Princeton University. She writes and curates on questions of design, art, sexuality, and media and her work has been translated in more than 25 languages. Her books include Privacy and Publicity: Modern Architecture as Mass Media (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1994), Clip/Stamp/Fold (Barcelona: Actar Publishers, 2010), and Radical Pedagogies (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2022). Her exhibitions include Clip/Stamp/Fold at the Storefront for Art and Architecture gallery in New York in 2006, and Sick Architecture at CIVA in Brussels in 2022.

Béatrice Grenier is Strategic and International Projects Director at the Fondation Cartier. In 2025, she curated an exhibition in Venice, presenting Jean Nouvel’s architectural project for the Fondation Cartier on the Place du Palais-Royal in Paris, as part of the collateral program of the 19th Venice Architecture Biennale. She also curated, with Grazia Quaroni, Exposition Générale, the inaugural exhibition dedicated to the Collection of the Fondation Cartier in its new spaces. She is the author of books and essays at the intersection of global contemporary architecture and art such as Architecture for Culture: Rethinking Museums and Tashkent: A Modernist Capital (New York: Rizzoli, 2025 and 2024).

A graduate of the École Polytechnique and the École Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées, Antoine Picon is also an architect and a PhD in history. A historian of architecture, cities, and technologies, he is a professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. He was president of the Fondation Le Corbusier from 2013 to 2024. Antoine Picon has published numerous articles and books on the history of engineering, utopian thought, architecture, and cities. A focus of his studies is the relationship between architectural practice and scientific and technological developments. More recently, he has directed his attention to the impact of the digital revolution on architecture and the city, and the interactions between cities, nature, and technology.

A graduate of the École d’Architecture de la Ville et des Territoires Paris-Est, Mathieu Forest joined the Ateliers Jean Nouvel in 1997. He has participated in numerous projects, such as the Zlaty Andel building in Prague, the Danish Radio Concert Hall in Copenhagen, the Archipel Theatre in Perpignan, the Nouvel KLCC in Kuala Lumpur, as well as various competitions, among them the redevelopment of the Halles district in Paris and the new Gazprom headquarters in St. Petersburg. From 2007 to 2015, he was project director for the construction of the Paris Philharmonic Hall, then for the preliminary studies and competition for the National Art Museum of China in Beijing and the Museum of Art Pudong in Shanghai. Since 2015, he has been the studio director in charge of the transformation of the Palais-Royal building for the Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain.

A graduate architect from ENSA Paris-Malaquais, Cyril Desroche joined the Ateliers Jean Nouvel in March 2000. He participated in numerous projects: the Nantes Law Courts, the Musée du Quai Branly – Jacques Chirac Museum in Paris, the Danish Radio Concert Hall in Copenhagen. In 2005, Cyril Desroche left the AJN for California, where he joined Frank Gehry’s studio. For six years, he worked principally on the development of the Louis Vuitton Foundation, and then on projects for the Luma Foundation in Arles and the Guggenheim Museum in Abu Dhabi. In 2011, he returned to the AJN and joined the team for the Paris Philharmonic Hall project. In 2015, he was appointed project director in the team for the creation of new exhibition spaces for the Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain in Paris.

Martin Argyroglo is an independent photographer specializing in the fields of architecture, art, and culture. After completing a program of literary studies, he attended the École des Gobelins in 2001, followed by the Beaux-Arts in Paris in 2003. It was during this period that he embarked on a career as a professional photographer, acting for seven years as assistant to Marc Riboud (1923–2016). Since 2008 he has worked on his own projects, participating in collective exhibitions in France and abroad as well as solo shows. In 2012, the École Nationale Supérieure d’Architecture de Paris-La Villette hosted his exhibition La plaine est belle. Between 2021 and 2025, Martin Argyroglo documented the different stages of the renovation project at 2 Place du Palais-Royal in Paris for the Fondation Cartier.

Danica O. Kus is an independent architecture and fine art photographer. Born in Slovenia, she received her education in photography at the RHoK Academy of Visual Arts in Brussels between 1999 and 2005. Her work focuses on photographing buildings, in collaboration with architects, designers, and cultural institutions. Her photographs have been exhibited in solo and group exhibitions around the world and appear regularly in architecture and design publications. Her work has entered the collections of the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, the Museum of Fine Arts Houston, and the Musée Rodin, as well as private collections. Danica O. Kus has received numerous awards, including a 2024 IPA International Photography Award (First Prize, Architecture/Industrial category).