RCR Arquitectes’ Large Art Centre Opens on Paris’s Île Seguin
A new art centre called Large has opened on Île Seguin, a former Renault factory site west of Paris. Designed by Pritzker Prize-winning firm RCR Arquitectes, it forms part of the Pointe des Arts development, which also includes an IMAX cinema and a hotel. The project aims to bring cultural life back to an island that has seen several failed redevelopment plans since the factory closed in 1992.
Large occupies the Île Seguin, a 28-acre island west of Paris that once held Renault’s original factory. Production ended in 1992, demolition followed by 2005, and several cultural schemes—including proposals involving Tadao Ando, François Pinault, Jean Nouvel, and Yves Bouvier—failed before Shigeru Ban’s concert hall La Seine Musicale arrived in 2017.
The Pointe des Arts complex also contains an IMAX cinema and a hotel. RCR Arquitectes, Pritzker winners in 2017, shaped the buildings as an angular fin, using rust-coloured corten steel and copper-pink anodised aluminium. Microperforations in the aluminium filter sunlight and create a mashrabiya-like screen.
The opening may help residents and visitors see Île Seguin as a cultural destination rather than an abandoned industrial site. Local businesses, hotel and cinema operators, and arts audiences could benefit from increased foot traffic, while the island’s design may influence how other former industrial areas approach redevelopment. Yet the project’s success may depend on sustained programming, transport access, and whether it connects with surrounding communities rather than remaining an isolated enclave.