Carré d'art, Art gallery and library near Maison Carrée, Nîmes, France.
Carré d'art is a cultural centre facing the Maison Carrée in Nîmes, combining a contemporary art museum and the municipal library. Norman Foster's building of glass, concrete and steel has a nine-storey structure, half of it sunk underground, with a flat slatted canopy projecting over the glass facade and a sign reading "Carré d'art". The lower levels hold archival storage and a cinema.
This museum and library opened in 1993 following architect Norman Foster's design, created to house contemporary art collections and ancient library materials from a former Jesuit cloister. The building was conceived as a modern institutional response to Nîmes' need for both a contemporary art venue and research facility.
The library's heritage holdings come from revolutionary confiscations and 19th- and 20th-century deposits: a 10th-century manual by Dhuoda, a 14th-century Decretum Gratiani, a 15th-century book of hours, and Jean Poldo d'Albenas's 1559 history of Nîmes, the city's first printed book. The museum collection, begun in 1986, covers 1960 to the present, with Nouveau Réalisme, Supports/Surfaces and Figuration libre, movements born in southern France.
The building has a straightforward layout with elevators and stairs connecting the above-ground and underground levels, making access fairly easy for different mobility needs. Plan several hours to explore both the gallery spaces and the media library at your own pace.
The building's glass facade stands directly across from the Roman temple Maison Carrée, creating a visual dialogue between ancient stone and modern transparency. This intentional architectural response makes the spatial relationship between the two structures one of the site's defining features.
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