Paris's next big art moment isn't in the Marais or by the Tuileries. It's on a sliver of land in the Seine at Boulogne-Billancourt, where Île Seguin — once home to Renault's vast 20th-century factory — is being recast as a cultural district. The centrepiece, Large, a new contemporary art centre, opens on 17 October 2026.
The building alone justifies the Métro ride. Catalan studio RCR Arquitectes, winners of the 2017 Pritzker Prize, designed it with French practice CALQ: nearly 27,000 square feet of exhibition space stacked across levels linked by monumental escalators and corridors that peer into one another's galleries, plus terraces facing the river and the hills of Meudon. The main gallery is pillar-free and rises to 46 feet.
The opening show leans into the island's industrial past. "Moteur Imaginaire (Imaginary Engine)", curated by Cecilia Alemani of the 2022 Venice Biennale, explores our relationship with machines and the automobile through 120 works by 55 artists from 23 countries — Jean Dubuffet, Niki de Saint Phalle, Jean Tinguely and Victor Vasarely among them, alongside 17 new commissions. Highlights include Bertrand Lavier's Renault Formula One car slathered in painterly brushstrokes and a hand-carved coffin by Ghanaian artist Paa Joe modelled on the 1899 Renault Type B. The show runs to 7 March 2027.
Large is also designed as a hangout, not just a white cube: around 40% of the building is free to enter, including a 4,000-square-foot atrium for talks and performances, a bookshop, a kids' art space and Extra Large, a café with a panoramic Seine-facing terrace. Exhibitions cost €15, and entry is free for under-26s.
The centre is one piece of the wider Pointe des Arts development, which is filling more than 13 acres of the island with the concert venue La Seine Musicale, an eight-screen Pathé cinema, a sculpture park planned to hold over 30 works, restaurants and a forthcoming four-star hotel. It's a striking turnaround for a site that for decades meant one thing: car manufacturing. Getting there is easy — about a ten-minute walk from the end of Métro line 9, which makes this a natural half-day trip tacked onto a Paris city break.
