Île Seguin: Paris's former Renault island opens a 27,000-sq-ft art center

Paris has no shortage of museums, but its most exciting new opening this autumn isn't in the city center at all. On October 17, a contemporary art center called Large opens on Île Seguin, a small island in the Seine at Boulogne-Billancourt, about a 10-minute walk from the end of Métro line 9.

The island spent most of the 20th century as the home of Renault's enormous factory. Now it's the centerpiece of a wider cultural reinvention, and Large is the next major piece. The 1.25-acre building packs nearly 27,000 square feet of exhibition space across several levels, including a vast, pillar-free main gallery that rises as high as 46 feet.

The architecture is a draw on its own. Designed by Catalan studio RCR Arquitectes — winners of the 2017 Pritzker Architecture Prize — alongside French practice CALQ, the building plays with light, scale and views over the river. Visitors enter through a 4,000-square-foot atrium, then climb via corridors, monumental escalators and galleries that overlook one another, with terraces facing the Seine and the hills of Meudon.

An exhibition built on the island's industrial past

The inaugural show, "Moteur Imaginaire (Imaginary Engine)," leans straight into that history. Curated by Cecilia Alemani, the Italian curator behind the 2022 Venice Biennale, it explores our relationship with machines, industry and the automobile. It brings together 120 works by 55 artists from 23 countries, including Jean Dubuffet, Niki de Saint Phalle, Jean Tinguely and Victor Vasarely, plus 17 new commissions.

Some pieces make playful use of Renault's legacy: Bertrand Lavier shows a Renault Formula One car covered in thick painterly brushstrokes, Bianca Bondi presents a Renault 12 chassis transformed with salt, water and vegetation, and Ghanaian artist Paa Joe and his son have carved a coffin inspired by the 1899 Renault Type B.

Large isn't meant to work only as a museum. Around 40% of the building is accessible without a ticket, with an amphitheater-like atrium for talks and performances, a bookshop, a children's art space and a café called Extra Large with a panoramic terrace. Entry to exhibitions is free for visitors aged 26 and under.

The center is just one arm of the Pointe des Arts development, which covers more than 13 acres. La Seine Musicale already hosts concerts, an eight-screen Pathé cinema sits on the island, and a four-star hotel is on the way. For anyone who's already done the Louvre and the Musée d'Orsay, there's now a very good reason to ride line 9 all the way to the end.