The transformation of the Bourse de Commerce is Tadao Ando’s largest creation in Europe, after his work for François Pinault in Venice (Palazzo Grassi and Punta Della Dogana), and the  project of the Pinault Foundation to transform the former Renault factory on île Seguin,  outside Paris was abandoned. Pinault himself stated: “I love Tadao Ando’s minimalist aesthetic. His architecture is silent. No artifice, no unnecessary detail disturbs his architechtural gesture, which succeeds in combining absolute simplicity and extreme complexity.”

Ando has restored and transformed the building into a multi-use space, with ten galleries, a 284 seat  auditorium and a top-floor restaurant. The centerpiece is a 30-foot-tall cylinder of concrete inserted into the inner space with a margin between the outer wall. The curves mirror the building’s original structure, creating a central gallery awash in natural light which pours into the museum from the oculus of the glass dome above. Due to COVID-19 global lockdowns, Ando himself has not seen the completed Bourse de Commerce with its circular architecture, a favourite theme of his work is indeed the circle, transformed into a cylinderic tube in this particular building.
 

A concrete cylinder, its walls pierced with four identical openings and surmounted by an oculus that allows natural light to filter inside, was inserted into the the center of the building, once used to store wheat and the active center of the stock market.  The famous Medici column incorporated into the outer wall, the double-spiral staircases, or its rotunda, emphasize the role of the past as the foundation of contemporary creation. Underneath the cupola, a restored décor representing French trade and commerce with the five continents painted in 1889  captures the visitor’s eye when gazing upwards from the ground floor or directly underneath the dome on the third floor.

The cylinderic form of the original structure links two walls and two eras, with a walkway curling around the newly inserted central concrete cylinder in the inside of the building, providing additional exhibition space. Visitors who enter into the vast reception area located on the ground floor, may continue 'spiraling' upwards to the third floor or downstairs into the former basement to the auditorium with a circular stage, and an additional studio. On the third and top floor, the visit ends in a stunning panorama of the city to one side, and the interior of the building, its skylight and restored frescos on the other. Here the two chefs Michel and Sebastian Bras will preside in a restaurant with furniture designed by Ronan and Erwin Bouroullec. The pair also designed other furniture and lighting in the building.
 

François Pinault has assembled an exceptional body of over ten thousand works by nearly 380 artists which is made up of paintings, sculptures, videos, photographs, sound pieces, installations and performances. The artists whose work has been collected by François Pinault come from every continent and multiple generations, exploring every field of creation and attests to the collector’s attention to emerging movements from the 1960s to the present day.

The industrialist collector was invited by the Mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, in 2015 to consider the Bourse de Commerce as a possible site for his museum. Immediately Jean-Jacques Aillagon – consultant in cultural affairs to François Pinault, and since 2018, general director of the Pinault Collection - closely inspected the premises to deal with hazards such as the discovery of potent pockets of pollution in the basement that had to be eliminated. François Pinault did not hesitate to approve the historic site as the future Bourse de Commerce – Pinault Collection in Paris.
 

The Bourse de Commerce at 50 Rue du Louvre in the first arrondissement of Paris will open its doors to the public at 11am on 22nd May 2020 for three free days 22nd, 23rd and 24th May from 11am until 7pm.
Reservations will open on Thursday 6th May at pinaultcollection.com/en.
The museum is open everyday except Tuesday from 11am until 7pm.
Due to sanitary restrictions online booking is still required to access the museum.