A new space dedicated to contemporary art on the Île Seguin, in the Greater Paris area, is opening in October 2026. The new cultural institution, named "Large," will be housed in a building designed by Catalan architects and Pritzker Prize recipients RCR Arquitectes, the studio's first project in Paris. It is situated on La Pointe des Arts, a large-scale redevelopment of the Île Seguin's former industrial area into a mixed-use complex spanning more than 53,000 m² and focused on arts and culture. The project's architectural massing follows the stratification concept set out in the masterplan by Ateliers Jean Nouvel. The institution will open with the exhibition "Imaginary Engine: From Masterpieces of the Collection Renault to Artists of Today," bringing together 55 artists from 23 countries to explore the relationship between humanity and machines, in tribute to the site's industrial history and Renault's decades-long collaboration with artists.
The project sits at the tip of the Île Seguin, an island in the river Seine long known as a historic industrial site. The Renault Factory operated there from 1919 until 1992, becoming a major automobile production hub and a symbol of French industrial history. The factory was demolished between 2004 and 2005, and in 2009 Jean Nouvel was appointed master planner to convert the island into an eco-friendly cultural hub. This wider transformation, known as La Pointe des Arts, began with the inauguration of Shigeru Ban's La Seine Musicale in April 2017; the 11.5-hectare island now hosts a growing number of internationally focused cultural and arts projects.
RCR Arquitectes' new 41,000 m² building brings together 7,000 m² of retail and foodservice, a 5,000 m² contemporary arts centre, 20,000 m² of office space, and an 8-screen Pathé cinema with a 6,000 m² IMAX theatre, across six upper floors, a riverbank ground floor, a basement, and 1,200 m² of landscaped terraces. The building faces west, with no facing structures, and south, toward the park, the Seine, and the hills of Meudon. Its U-shaped first three floors are structured around an interior street opening onto the forecourt at bridge level, with wide east-west openings revealing both riverbanks: a high square on the street, animated by the arts centre and shops, and a low square on the banks, bordered by shops and the hotel. At riverbank level, the plinth houses the cinema, entered from the forecourt, with a gallery overlooking the Seine. On the north side, an upper terrace forms a garden where the offices blend into the surrounding hills. The arts centre anchors the volume, its exhibition spaces at terrace level linking both riverbanks through an open volume cantilevered over the Seine.
The building's most distinctive volume is enclosed by a façade of Corten steel, whose patina will develop over time. The rust-coloured envelope references the riverside industrial aesthetic and integrates with the surrounding landscape. The material is also used for column cladding, curtain walling, wall cladding, and solar shading. Other aluminium-clad surfaces reflect the sky, light, and water, while unfinished concrete marks the continuity of the plinth. Light filters through mashrabiya screens on the plate-glass windows and through hidden openings, with the architecture punctuated by openings that offer vistas across the island's slopes and the surrounding landscape.
The building's interior unfolds around a pillar-free main exhibition area with curved walls, spanning 1,000 m² and rising 14 metres high by 42 metres wide, with a large window opening onto the surrounding landscaped terrace. A concealed staircase leads to two further galleries, each with 500 m² of floorspace, on the 5th and 6th floors, where a central core anchors the layout while doubling as an unconventional display wall, and a balcony on each level offers a bird's-eye view of the main gallery below. Throughout the building, floors are finished in matte galvanised steel parquet, and despite the scale of its volumes, the space is acoustically balanced to produce no echo. From the top floor, a double-helix staircase descends to the fourth floor, where an escalator, identical to the one at the building's entrance, carries visitors down to the bookshop and boutique on the ground floor.
The inaugural exhibition, titled "Imaginary Engine: From Masterpieces of the Collection Renault to Artists of Today," opens on 17 October 2026 in collaboration with the Fonds Renault pour l'Art et la Culture. It pays tribute to the site's industrial history and to Renault's contribution to the arts scene since the 1960s, when the company began collaborating with artists to create a collection of works inspired by manufacturing and the automobile. Bringing together 55 artists from 23 countries, the exhibition explores the relationship between humanity and machines. According to curator Cecilia Alemani, "the exhibition examines the mechanisms of modernity, using the factory, the engine and the assembly line as metaphors for the delicate balance between our individual capacities and collective functioning."
Other recent news in cultural architecture includes Snøhetta's Shanghai Grand Opera House, a spiralling design nearing completion as part of a broader cultural master plan to reinforce Shanghai's role as an international centre of culture and innovation. MVRDV and Balance Architettura have unveiled their proposal for the renovation of the Civic Gallery of Modern and Contemporary Art (GAM) in Turin, Italy, following their selection through a public competition in December 2025. Dar al Funoon Abu Dhabi, the new performing arts institution designed by the late architect Frank Gehry, has recently started construction in the United Arab Emirates. Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG) has also unveiled new images of the National Juneteenth Museum, offering a closer look at the design of the approximately 6,690 m² institution planned for Texas, in the United States.
