The Bourse de commerce ; an architectural walk

Guillaume Picon

Publié par Tallandier, le 20 mai 2021

96 pages

Résumé

In January 2021, the Pinault Collection will make the headlines by opening a new museum of contemporary art in Paris' Stock Exchange. To transform this historic place located in the heart of the capital, François Pinault turned to Tadao Ando, as he had already done in Venice. Weaving a link between past and present, the Japanese architect transfigures one of the iconic monuments of Parisian heritage. Designed as an architectural walk, the book opens on the Medici column built during the Renaissance and closes on the concrete cylinder of Tadao Ando. The reader also visits the Halle au Blé built during the reign of Louis XV. Admired by its contemporaries for its circular shape, constituting a resolutely original bias, soon reinforced by the addition of a metal dome - a real technological feat -, it was transformed into a stock exchange during the Universal Exhibition of 1889. Tracing the evolution of the building, in its architecture as in its uses, the author focuses on the use of circles in architecture, the preservation of a unique heritage and the aesthetics of concrete. This work constitutes the first history of the Bourse de Commerce, from the 16th century to the installation of the Pinault Collection. Considered at the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries as one of the most popular places in the capital, the Bourse de Commerce has finally regained its position as a beacon of its district, Les Halles.