The largest exhibition ever dedicated to Jean Nouvel has opened at the Museum of Art Pudong, designed by the French architect himself

An exhibition dedicated to the work of French architect Jean Nouvel has opened at the Museum of Art Pudong in Shanghai, a building designed by Nouvel himself. This is the first of many paradoxes surrounding Jean Nouvel: entitled “Without the Artist, Architecture Disappears”, it is the most extensive monographic exhibition ever dedicated to the designer. It brings together four architectural works, over a hundred design objects, and a reconstruction of the workspaces of Ateliers Jean Nouvel.

The Museum of Art Pudong opened its doors in Shanghai in 2021. Spanning 40,000 square metres, the museum is a cubic structure clad in white granite, overlooking the Huangpu River and designed by Nouvel’s architectural firm. Today, MAP’s exhibition spaces host a show dedicated to the French architect—2022 Domus guest editor, 2008 Pritzker Prize laureate, and author of some of the most recognisable buildings in contemporary architecture.

Initially trained in Claude Parent’s studio and later collaborating with François Seigneur, Nouvel—together with his firm, Ateliers Jean Nouvel, founded in 1994—played a decisive role in establishing France as a laboratory for avant-garde architectural experimentation. Throughout his career, the designer has worked across different scales and languages, engaging each time with the specific conditions of the site and brief. 

A tangible example of this approach is the museum itself in Shanghai, where the large white box functions as a device attentive to contemporary curatorial needs while simultaneously serving as a temple devoted to the nature of the place that shapes it—following the course of the river, opening up to the skyline, and welcoming as much natural light as possible into its interior.

The exhibition, titled “Jean Nouvel: Without the Artist, Architecture Disappears”, showcases the renowned designer’s work through four key projects: the Philharmonie de Paris (2015), the National Museum of Qatar (2019), the Museum of Art Pudong (2021), and the Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain – Palais-Royal (2025). These projects are meticulously reconstructed and presented through a variety of media, including films, models, drawings, and photographs. 

The exhibition also features over a hundred industrial design projects, representing nearly the entire output of the studio, alongside a reproduction of a section of the Ateliers Jean Nouvel workspace, equipped with sixteen computer workstations that allow visitors to explore the studio’s archives directly.