Jean Nouvel, Cattani and Associates at the ICA, 1993

In the first of two upper galleries, a high naturally lit Nash room facing St. James’s Park, are displayed three portfolios and some published work placed on three grey metal and glass tables, plus two white chairs and a black sofa. The portfolios contained many computer plotted plans, the occasional section and only the odd exploratory sketch. This room is memorable neither as an “archive” nor for his furniture, which somehow lack presence in the room, but for the two quotations in red and blue, painted large on one wall. Here, as in the Concourse Gallery, one suspects Nouvel was more at ease with his exhibition, using words rather than images to be provocative. Slipped in between this and the final gallery is a sequence of framed views, displayed as computer drawings on a single monitor. This captures Nouvel’s concern with constructing architecture as a series of theatrical moments, and recalls the influence of the intellectual scènographer, Jacques Le Marquet, with whom Nouvel has always enjoyed collaborating at the conceptual stage.

The final gallery is lit by two long runs of lightboxes mounted on opposite walls. They contain thousands of 35mm slides, the antithesis of the large projected images in the ground floor gallery, covering both built and unbuilt projects. Since there are no magnifying glasses, either for hire or mechanically located on rails running in front of them, eyesight is at a very high premium indeed and putting my nose up against the glass I realised I wasn’t going to get any closer to the “architectural sensations” of Jean Nouvel, Emmanuel Catani and Associates than when I left the first gallery of the exhibition.

Unannounced and unlit in this last room, stood the one model in the exhibition, the Tours Sans Fin, a surreptitious 3D intruder to the exhibition, the extraordinary totem to the late twentieth century media age, the exploitation of which Jean Nouvel is one of the recognised masters.

This exhibition is essentially a 2D visual catalogue, yet Nouvel’s architecture is so spatial and tactile. It is a shame that the material richness of his architecture is only hinted at by the static icon from The World Arab Institute building, and his few pieces of furniture.

One anticipated that this exhibition, designed by Nouvel himself, and ideally located given the reputation of the man and his work at London’s established avant garde venue, would generate much excitement, and maybe even controversy. Not the case I’m sorry to say. Nouvel has fallen short, by his own high standards, to meet the challenge faced in presenting this exhibition. This gives cause for reflection, not on account of the architectural content of the exhibition, but how to capture and present built architecture, like that that produced by Jean Nouvel as an invigorating exhibition to the art-going public. However, perhaps those less familiar with his work will not be so disappointed.

© Ian Ritchie, July 16, 1993