The Bourse de Commerce: From the "Queen's Mansion" to a Contemporary Art Museum

The Bourse de Commerce—the former commodities exchange—is a Roman-style incongruity situated in the heart of Paris between the Louvre and Les Halles, with a history closely entwined with that of the French royal family and a strategic district. Its five-year restoration has preserved the feel of the monument to a remarkable degree. While using his vocabulary of gray tones bathed in zenithal lighting, architect Tadao Ando has proved his talent for inserting ambitious architecture into an existing envelope. "Rather like a Russian doll," as he says, he has fitted a concrete cylinder 98.4 feet in diameter and 29.5 feet high inside the building, lowering its rotunda so that the gaze can move around freely. Visible from every angle, the glass vault is encircled by a restored and freshly-cleaned panorama depicting trades in the continents. All around, the 19 th -century shop windows of the Voillereau company, placed between the twenty-four arcades of the inner façade, host an initial installation. A 284-seat modular auditorium in the basement will be used for lectures, performances and dance shows. A total of ten exhibition spaces will enable a permanent rotation, unlike the Venice…