Late Nights at the Fondation Cartier

Section 01

The most beautiful art space on the boulevard stays open late — and after dark, the glass pavilion lives up to its reputation.

Section 02After Hours on the Boulevard

Most of the boulevard du Montparnasse operates on a brasserie clock: things begin early and run loud until well past midnight. The Fondation Cartier pour l'art contemporain works differently — it is a gallery, with gallery hours, and that means an evening visit requires a little planning. But the reward for that planning is considerable.

Jean Nouvel's building, completed in 1994, is one of the rare works of contemporary architecture in Paris that earns unanimous admiration. A double skin of glass — one layer flush with the street, a second set back around the structure itself — creates an effect that is hard to categorise and easy to love. By day it reflects sky and cedar trees; by night it dissolves into the city, the lit interior floating behind a scrim of illuminated glass. The tree is real: a Lebanese cedar planted on the site in the nineteenth century by the writer Chateaubriand. Nouvel built the pavilion around it.

The foundation shows international contemporary art, photography and design across a programme that changes regularly. The building is on the boulevard Raspail, a short walk south of Carrefour Vavin, La Coupole and Le Dôme — which makes it a natural stop in an evening that might begin at a terrace and end somewhere later. Late openings run on selected evenings; check the foundation's own schedule before you arrive.

It is, at minimum, worth a slow walk past at night even if you arrive too late for the doors. The façade, lit from within, is an artwork in its own right.

Most of the boulevard du Montparnasse operates on a brasserie clock: things begin early and run loud until well past midnight.

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