Architecture in Dialogue with the World

The finest architecture is the kind that disappears, allowing light, space and emotion to take centre stage. This is the philosophy behind Jean Nouvel: Without the Artist, Architecture Disappears, the major retrospective celebrating the fifth anniversary of the Museum of Art Pudong. The venue itself makes the exhibition especially meaningful: designed by Jean Nouvel, the museum becomes, for the first time, the setting for an exhibition devoted to its own creator. Through architectural models, films, drawings, archival documents and a reconstruction of Nouvel's studio, the exhibition traces more than fifty years of a career that has reshaped the language of contemporary architecture. From the iconic Philharmonie de Paris and the National Museum of Qatar to the new Fondation Cartier and the Museum of Art Pudong itself, each project reveals an architecture conceived as a unique response to its surroundings. More than one hundred design projects and a digital archive featuring hundreds of built and unbuilt works complete an immersive journey into the creative world of one of today's most influential architects. The exhibition reveals how great architecture never imposes itself, but instead enters into dialogue with the landscape, the city and the people who inhabit it.