Junya Ishigami meets Jean Nouvel at Fondation Cartier

“Freeing Architecture” is Junya Ishigami’s exhibition presented at Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain from March 30. The young architect, a figurehead of a new Japanese generation, signs here his very first major solo exhibition. It is also a first for Fondation Cartier, which had never devoted a solo exhibition to an architect before. While the exhibition’s name sounds like a manifesto, Junya Ishigami’s work (models, films and drawings) could not have found a better setting than the building designed by Jean Nouvel. This is a dialogue of visions that the opening event proposed to extend with an original conversation between the two architects. Great names in art and institutional figures had responded to the invitation of the Fondation’s director Hervé Chandès. Among them, André Magnin (who orchestrated “Beauté Congo” at the same place in 2015), Raymond Depardon or curator Bernard Blistène. Awarded with the Golden Lion at the Venice Biennale in 2010, Junya Ishigami has made a name for himself for his unique approach to architecture and his intrinsic relationship with nature and landscapes. Best witnesses of his work are The Kanagawa Institute of Technology, which he signed in 2008, or the large-scale project planned for the city of Copenhagen (the model of which is part of the exhibition): an imposing white cloud delicately placed on the water. The exhibition at Fondation Cartier presents a series of works, from drawings to scale models, full of dreams and poetry which, beyond their undeniable aesthetic appeal, reveal a unique way of thinking about architectural practice. To see until next June 10.