Gagosian, Le Bourget Gallery — About — Slash Paris

In the fall of 2012, Gagosian Gallery has inaugurate a bold new gallery space in the north of Paris, at Le Bourget. The unprecedented choice of location in the industrial area of Le Bourget is linked to the discovery of this exceptional space, an industrial building from the 1950s, comprising 1650 square meters (17,760 square feet) on two levels. A mezzanine of 340 square meters (3,660 square feet) overlooks the ground floor,
offers the opportunity to exhibit large-scale sculptures, paintings and installations.

The gallery has been designed by world-renowned architect Jean Nouvel in collaboration with HW architecture. Nouvel’s design retain the building’s distinctive features, while restoring and transforming it into a modern and supple exhibition space that provides artists with an extraordinary context in which to exhibit their work.

In his game-changing architectural practice, Nouvel strives for an original language that combines collective memory and projections of the future, decoration and advanced engineering, gestures of vast public important and of great intimacy. This ongoing aspiration has produced some of the most innovative and controversial buildings of recent times that transform the urban landscapes in which they exist, challenging the perceptions of those who live in and around them, and becoming major urban events in themselves. As Nouvel states, “Each new situation requires a new architecture or the need for re-adaptation that is suitable to the purpose. For this project the need to preserve the original architecture was the instantaneous resolution” — thus the Le Bourget project for Gagosian is informed by a deep evaluation and interpretation of the site, context, and program.

In April 2011, Gagosian Gallery Paris Project Space presented an exhibition of Jean Nouvel Design, including the limited editions Table au Kilomètre and Boîte à Outils.