Bourse de Commerce - Pinault Collection
The structuring element of the project to transform the Bourse de Commerce echoes the fundamental principle of the building: its circularity.
A concrete cylinder, with smooth walls pierced by four identical openings and topped by a light-filtering oculus, fits into the central void, in dialogue with its scrupulously restored historical elements. This arrangement erases all landmarks to create a unified, abstract and fixed space.
The centre of the building, originally a place for storing wheat, then a vibrant basket for the stock exchange, open to the city with streets converging on it to literally pour their activity into it, becomes isolated. It became the place for an introspective experience of encounter with the works.
The essential components of the architecture - the circular shape, the dome, the controlled presence of light - are the protagonists of a scenography that aims to remove the visitor from contingencies and allow him or her to access a unique dimension, that of the "here and now".
The aim of the project to convert the Bourse de Commerce into a museum is to organise the conditions for visitors to wander around and to create a flexible, adaptable exhibition space, ready to accommodate the many different media used by contemporary artists.
The intervention is based on the existing attributes and exemplary elements of the building. It is the result of multiple destructive and constructive stages. The appropriation of this iterative process consists of adding a new layer. The real and symbolic passages to the history of the building and the exemplary elements such as the Medici column, the double-revolution staircases and the rotunda, mark the vision of a relationship with history as the basis for contemporary creation. Here, the concrete wall becomes a lightweight structure, bridging the gap between the desire to build a homogeneous space that is ready to move the senses, respect for the historic provisions, and the desire to use them as a tool.
The circle, a particular form in architecture, and the unusual spatial experience it induces, offer the opportunity for free and infinite visits and walks, with the potential for constant renewal.
It appears as a metaphor for the movement of creation and the rereading of art history, in which links, relationships and energies are diffused and replayed in a non-linear way, according to sometimes secret or invisible logics. In the central space of the rotunda, the volumes, under the changing light and the paintings of a nature rendered abstract - clouds, snow, sun and wind - are the silent witnesses of the perpetual movement of exchange and creation.
