From June 27 to August 31, 2026, marking its fifth anniversary, Museum of Art Pudong (MAP) present Jean Nouvel: Without the Artist, Architecture Disappears, a comprehensive exhibition dedicated to the preeminent luminary of global contemporary architecture and Pritzker Prize laureate, Jean Nouvel.

Through a comprehensive array of mediums—including films, architectural models, archival documents, installations, and a reconstructed scenography of Ateliers Jean Nouvel—the exhibition offers a panoramic account of his extraordinary career spanning over half a century, delivering a magnificent feast for the architectural design community. Notably, it is the first time Nouvel stages a solo exhibition within a building of his own design. Thus, the architecture of MAP itself forms an integral part of the exhibition. From the moment they enter the museum, visitors step directly into Jean Nouvel’s solo show.

The exhibition is produced by Shanghai Lujiazui East Bund Culture Development Co., Ltd., organised by the Museum of Art Pudong and in partnership with Ateliers Jean Nouvel. The exhibition is supported by the Consulate General of France in Shanghai and the Institut français de Chine. It has been included in the 2026 edition of the Croisements Festival.

Jean Nouvel: a creator of numerous landmark projects worldwide, and a long-standing friend of China

Born in 1945 in Fumel, Lot-et-Garonne, France, Jean Nouvel graduated from the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris and began his architectural practice in the 1970s. Over the decades, he has designed a series of internationally acclaimed projects, including Philharmonie de Paris, Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain - Palais Royal and National Museum of Qatar.

Rather than adopting a fixed stylistic language, Nouvel has consistently developed a context-driven methodology. Each project emerges from its specific site, cultural environment, urban and environmental conditions, resulting in singular architectural responses. Renowned as a "magician of light", he excels at utilizing light to make space flow, fostering a dialogue between architecture and its surroundings to create spaces that are poetic and evocative of emotional resonance.

This architectural philosophy, which emphasizes site-specificity, along with the constantly renewed originality of his projects, has earned Jean Nouvel international renown and numerous accolades throughout more than half a century of architectural practice. In 2000, he was awarded the Golden Lion at the Venice Architecture Biennale. In 2001, he received three major honours, the Royal Gold Medal from the Royal Institute of British Architects, the Borromini Prize for the Culture and Convention Centre in Lucerne, and the Praemium Imperiale from the Japan Art Association. In 2008, Nouvel received the Pritzker Prize, the highest honour in architecture.

Museum of Art Pudong itself stands as one of Jean Nouvel’s great examples of site-specific architecture. Starting from Museum of Art Pudong, the audience will also see Jean Nouvel’s continuous dialogue with China in the exhibition: projects such as Start Museum in Shanghai, Tencent Tower in Guangzhou, and Shenzhen Opera House constitute his multiple practices within China’s urban scenes. Jean Nouvel is a long-standing friend of China. For him, every creation in China is a re-verification of his context-driven methodology—proceeding from the climate, cultural texture, and public life of different cities to generate unique architectural responses. These works reflect his long-standing attention to China’s urban changes and together outline a creative thread that crosses different regions and architectural typologies. This solo exhibition is a milestone retrospective, meanwhile leaving new imaginative space for his future engagement with China.

Not merely the exhibition venue, MAP becomes the most distinctive "exhibit" within this presentation

Since its opening five years ago, MAP has already become an important urban landmark and cultural icon of Shanghai, while in this exhibition, the architecture of the museum itself becomes the most unique work on display. Unlike conventional architecture exhibitions that rely primarily on models and archival materials, this exhibition allows visitors to physically enter the "artwork" itself and experience the architect’s ideas and works at close range, exploring the delicately designed spatial sequences of Jean Nouvel.

Jean Nouvel masterfully takes full advantage of MAP's exceptional location. Through a sequence of finely choreographed architectural designs, the museum's "white cube" frames views of the Bund, the Oriental Pearl Tower, the Lujiazui skyline, and other defining landmarks of Shanghai.

Stepping into the Glass Hall, the century-old architectural complex of the Bund across the Huangpu River converges with massive glass curtain walls, creating a fluid, living tapestry of reflections. Unbeknownst to the visitors inside, they themselves become part of the view seen by people outside the museum. Through the east-facing long windows, the Oriental Pearl Tower and the Lujiazui skyline are perfectly framed. This is the natural "canvas" crafted by Nouvel, who uses light as his brush to paint the city’s breathtaking beauty by day and night.

In Hall X, a cavernous vertical space spanning five stories is punctuated by viewing apertures from different floors, offering a distinct yet complementary viewing experience for appreciating installation art. Looking up at The ceilings, the structured order woven from irregular lines and geometric shapes stands as Nouvel's homage to Suprematism. On the panoramic rooftop terrace, the centuries-old vistas across both banks of the Huangpu River are displayed in their full glory. Standing on this golden waterfront, one can intimately feel the pulsing rhythm of the city. Here, the visitor's perspective expands from the walls to overhead, from indoors to outdoors, until every view becomes part of the exhibition.

For Jean Nouvel, an architect’s mission goes beyond merely erecting a structure; it is about shaping an artistic environment that integrates deeply with its historical site and cultural background, echoing the unique context of the space. This philosophy is precisely the reason why the MAP building itself is part of the display.

Nouvel introduced the concept of a "domain": MAP is not to be viewed as an isolated building, but rather as a cultural domain that spans four hectares and stretches directly to the banks of the Huangpu River. This means that the moment visitors step onto the white flecked granite pavement, their art journey has already begun, and MAP itself becomes the very first work of art waiting to be explored within this domain. MAP's tree-lined surroundings set the museum apart from the cluster of high-rises nearby, accentuating its serene and self-contained character. It is this sense of independence and purity that invites visitors to slow down and linger over every thoughtfully designed space.

"Without the Artist, Architecture Disappears": an immersive architectural journey of sensibility

The exhibition’s title, Without the Artist, Architecture Disappears, is taken from the subtitle "Sans l'artiste l'architecture disparaît" of Jean Nouvel’s anthology published in France in 2025, Jean Nouvel: Mes Convictions. Within it, he reiterates the inseparable relationship between architecture and art, which together shape the character, emotion, and vitality of a place, allowing people to gain surprise, identity, and resonance through the interweaving of space, light, time, and history.

It is precisely under this philosophy that this exhibition is conceived and designed by Nouvel himself. It does not stop at reviewing the architectural works themselves but further attempts to present the artistic perception and creative process behind the architecture.

Starting from just outside the third-floor galleries, the exhibition invites the audience to embark on an immersive journey of architecture. The Glass Projection Installation presented in the concourse is a work specially created by Jean Nouvel for this exhibition. The video fragments within the installation are all sourced from the conceptual designs of Nouvel’s recent unbuilt projects. Stepping into the galleries, video works of extraordinary scale further reveal Jean Nouvel’s architectural world. These films highlight his landmark architectural projects, connecting his architectural practices across five continents, allowing the audience to feel as if they are stepping into one architecture after another designed by him.

Recreating Ateliers Jean Nouvel’s Paris studio scene, hundreds of project archives are generously disclosed

It is worth highlighting that this exhibition recreates the studio environment of Ateliers Jean Nouvel located in Paris, France. Sixteen computers are set up on-site for the audience to click into its files, which store hundreds of archives of Jean Nouvel’s past architectural and design projects. The exhibition generously offers the audience a rare opportunity to find out about the conceptual process and working methods of the world-class master architect all at once. Every visitor can delve deeply into the massive creative archives of Ateliers Jean Nouvel by browsing the project folders. Concurrently, this gallery also includes interview videos of Nouvel, making the audience feel as if they are immersed in the architect’s real working context, perceiving the shaping process of his creations.

Unveiling the birth of genius inspiration, landmark architectural models make their China debut

The exhibition presents a group of architectural models and their corresponding archives of Nouvel's most representative cultural projects, including Museum of Art Pudong, Philharmonie de Paris, Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain - Palais Royal, and National Museum of Qatar. By gathering together the models of these globally influential projects in China, the exhibition fully demonstrates Nouvel's unique and creative responsiveness to site, light, and cultural context.

It is worth mentioning that in this exhibition, large-scale window films of Parisian street scenes appears on the large windows of MAP. Amidst the cascading layers of light and shadow, the street scenes of Paris echo Shanghai’s city skyline from afar. From Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain - Palais Royal to Museum of Art Pudong and the Oriental Pearl Tower, within the unique exhibition design, the landmark buildings of the two cities appear to coexist within a single spatial and temporal frame.

Philharmonie de Paris is located in Parc de la Villette in Paris and is hailed as "one of the greatest musical architectures in the world." Nouvel seeks to establish a harmonious relationship between the concert hall and the Parc de la Villette, La Cité de la Musique and the Paris ring road. He uses cast aluminum materials to capture the city's changing light and shadow. Under the illumination of sunlight from different angles, the building produces subtle color variations, reflecting Nouvel's expectations for the concert hall: to make the unique experience brought by every concert become the shining light.

The overall form of National Museum of Qatar originates from the naturally formed "desert rose" crystals in the Qatari desert, composed of many interlocking disc structures that form a continuously emerging spatial sequence. The building unfolds around a historic palace, responding to the local high temperature and intense light environment through layered volumes and shading structures, transforming natural forms and regional culture into a sculptural, contemporary architectural language.

In Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain - Palais Royal project, Nouvel undertook a thorough transformation of a 19th-century Parisian building, preserving the historic facade while restructuring the interior into a flexibly changing art space. The floor-to-ceiling glass facing the street directly introduces exhibitions into the city’s line of sight, intensifying the interaction between art and public space.

Presented alongside them are six works from Jean Nouvel’s "Emergences" series. "Emergences" signifies the concrete realization process of architectural concepts from the mind to reality, uncovering the authentic and charming starting point of architectural creation. These include the initial Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain, 53W53 Tower, Galeries Lafayette, and Culture and Convention Centre (KKL), as well as two famous unbuilt projects: Tour Sans Fins and Tête Défense. These unexecuted concepts carry Nouvel’s most pure architectural thinking—though never materialized, they consistently constitute an indispensable part of his creative lineage.

Jean Nouvel’s design beyond architecture

Beyond architectural practice, Jean Nouvel has also developed an extensive body of work in design. In 1987, he created his first furniture pieces, and since then has continued to expand his practice under "Jean Nouvel Design", producing more than one hundred objects and furniture designs to date. These works often operate in close dialogue with his architectural projects, including commissions for Opéra National de Lyon and Sofitel Vienna Stephansdom.

Jean Nouvel regards furniture and products as "micro-architecture", which are also important components of the interior space of buildings. The exhibition not only leads the audience to get close to the various typologies of architecture he designed for different environments, but also presents his design works in depth through archives, revealing a lesser-known dimension of his practice.

Museum of Art Pudong continues to stride forward in deep resonance with the urban pulse

Architecture is not merely something designed by human hands; rather, it emerges from the deep recesses of land, history, climate, and people. Museum of Art Pudong stands as a powerful testament to this philosophy of Jean Nouvel. At the critical milestone of its fifth anniversary, this cultural landmark designed by Nouvel has not only integrated into the banks of the Huangpu River through its domains, but has also deeply connected architecture, art, and urban life through its vision and structure of continuously rolling out world-class exhibitions. Through systematically classified narratives and immersive viewing experiences, Museum of Art Pudong constantly expands the public's cognitive boundaries regarding the relationship between architecture and art, highlighting its sustained vitality as an international platform for cultural and artistic exchange. Here, the museum is no longer an isolated "white box," but an essential part of the city's public life—where every exhibition marks a fresh dialogue between art and the city, and between people and space.