A Thousand Future Blossoms | Galerie des Galeries

For the past 125 years, the Galeries Lafayette group has maintained a strong commitment to all creators.

All our projects are opportunities to pursue this commitment and embed culture at the heart of the city. With support from its real estate management company Citynove, the Galeries Lafayette invited the artist Martin Boyce to create his first Parisian installation for the Eataly store located at 37 rue Sainte-Croix-de-la-Bretonnerie. In striving to develop an urban, cultural and commercial ecosystem that respects the history of the site and the environment, the Galeries Lafayette group is once again ensuring that art lies at the heart of its architectural programme. Martin Boyce’s timeless work links three elements specifically designed for the renovated building and adjacent courtyard: a gate, a floor and a glass ceiling. Located at the heart of an ecosystem linking the historical Bazar de l’Hôtel de Ville to to Lafayette Anticipations – Fondation d’entreprise Galeries Lafayette, the Eataly Paris Marais installation is a new promenade in the centre of Paris.

Canopy

2019
Painted steel, tempered, painted and etched glass

In the centre of the building, an expanse of white and pink glass unfolds. Under the immense glass roof, 2,000 trapezoidal shapes are crossed by zenithal light, which transforms the building into an urban oasis. The variation in light intensity throughout the day and even the year constantly changes the configuration of the work, the restaurant and its architecture.

"The ceiling becomes a canopy, a futuristic cherry tree.

This canopy, composed of 2,000 white and pink glass trapezoids, borrows its shapes from the artist's repertoire, inspired by the geometry of the Martel brothers' cubist trees. These forms and motifs appear in the three works in situ in the heart of the Marais.

Work commissioned and produced by the Galeries Lafayette group and Citynove for the BHV/MARAIS courtyards, Paris, 2019.

Threshold & Forest Bed

2019
Galvanised and hammered steel gate
Pavement in Hainaut blue limestone

In 1925, the Martel brothers imagined cubist trees in concrete. Eighty years later, these trees became the main reference and matrix for Martin Boyce's work. The Scottish artist uses the entire vocabulary of these motifs to create three site-specific works in the heart of the Marais.

Here Martin Boyce draws a natural environment composed of geometric forms and mineral materials. The gate, handmade in wrought iron, becomes the entrance to an imaginary forest that opens onto an interstitial space. This ground becomes an esplanade of fragmented forms, a new urban flora.

Works commissioned and produced by the Galeries Lafayette group and Citynove for the BHV/MARAIS courtyards, Paris, 2019.

Martin Boyce

Born in 1967 in Hamilton (Scotland), lives and works in Glasgow (Scotland).

His art studies took him from the Glasgow School of Art to the California Institute of the Arts in Los Angeles.

After an exhibition in Münster as part of the Skulptur Projekte in 2007, he represented Scotland at the 2009 Venice Biennale with the exhibition No Reflections. In 2011 he was awarded the Turner Prize, organised by Tate Britain in London, for his installation Do Words Have Voices, exhibited at the Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art. In January 2018, with the support of the Clore Duffield Foundation, he created Remembered Skies, an in situ work covering one of the terraces of Tate Britain.

Other projects

Stairway to Heavens

Studio GGSV

Galeries Lafayette has invited the French artist duo Gaëlle Gabillet and Stéphane Villard from Studio GGSV for an exclusive carte blanche at the Parisian department store ; a tribute to contemporary creation orchestrated in a historic monument, an emblem of Art Nouveau.

Sans titre

de Orlane Albasini

Loyal to its mission to democratise creation, Galeries Lafayette is extending its commitment to fashion to the applied arts, design and architecture.

Danses d'ellipses

by Felice Varini

Invited in 2019 by Galeries Lafayette, the artist Felice Varini has designed one of his anamorphoses for the atrium of the Shanghai shop.

Après Vous, Le Déluge

by Superflex

Après Vous, Le Déluge is an art installation by the Danish collective Superflex, created for the Galeries Lafayette Champs-Elysées shop.

Escales

by H. Effat, K. Hassan, S. Kaddouri, C. Le Prado, E. Lemi

Escales is a musical journey through five sound creations imagined specifically for the fitting rooms of the Galeries Lafayette Marseille Prado shop.

Light Machine

by Xavier Veilhan

A light installation transforms the entrance of the new store dedicated to menswear.

Sans titre

by Pieter Vermeersch

The untitled work (2013) was designed and created by the Dutch artist Pieter Vermeersch especially for the seafront façade of Galeries Lafayette in Biarritz.

Forêt, Bleue

by Ulla von Brandenburg

BHV Marais and Citynove have entrusted the design of the entrance gate to the BHV Homme shop to the artist Ulla von Brandenburg.

The Galeries Lafayette group and creation

"The Galeries Lafayette group has been committed to all creators for 125 years. All our projects are an opportunity to pursue this commitment and to anchor culture in the heart of the city. Accompanied in this mission by their real estate company Citynove, Galeries Lafayette invited the artist Martin Boyce to produce his first Parisian installation for the Eataly shop at 37 rue Sainte-Croix-de-la-Bretonnerie. Anxious to build an urban, cultural and commercial ecosystem in the heart of the Marais that respects its heritage and the environment, the Galeries Lafayette group is once again placing art at the heart of its architectural programme. Martin Boyce's permanent work brings together three elements specially designed for the renovated building and its adjacent courtyards: a portal, a floor and a glass roof. Placed at the heart of an ecosystem that links the historic Bazar de l'Hôtel de Ville to Lafayette Anticipations - Galeries Lafayette Corporate Foundation, the installation created for Eataly Paris Marais describes a new walk in the heart of Paris."

Guillaume Houzé President of Lafayette Anticipations - Galeries Lafayette Corporate Foundation

Citynove and the courtyards of the Marais

Founded in 2008, Citynove manages and develops a retail property portfolio of 70,000 sqm, combining historic preservation with innovative architecture.

The asset management activity contributes to the reinvention of physical commerce through urban, environmental, cultural and social revitalisation in the heart of more than fifty French cities.

In constant interaction with local communities, Citynove calls on architects and designers to imagine and design spaces dedicated to commerce. Anticipating changes in consumer habits, Citynove contributes to the renewal of cities by imagining the department stores' of the 21st century. A place of desire, exchange and encounters: the objective is to offer visitors a unique and inspiring experience.

For the past 10 years, Citynove has been leading an urban and architectural project around the Cours du Marais which revives the spirit of the passages and of Parisian modernity. The ambitious project involves opening up to the public the passages located in private buildings, developed in collaboration with the English architect Jamie Fobert and the French agency DATA Architectes, renowned for their innovative architecture.

Linked by a series of promenades in the heart of historic buildings, Le BHV/Marais, Eataly Paris Marais and Lafayette Anticipations, the Galeries Lafayette group's corporate foundation, form a unique commercial and cultural ecosystem.

DATA and the architectural project

There was no question of any major demolition or break in scale. The main part of the project was the restoration of a heritage site.

The architectural firm DATA was chosen by Citynove to upgrade the exceptional buildings at 37 rue Sainte Croix-de-la-Bretonnerie, built in the mid-19th century. The renovation of this complex of three buildings was designed in close collaboration with the Architecte des Bâtiments de France and the City of Paris.

Founded in 2010 in Paris by Léonard Lassagne and Colin Reynier, DATA is a young Parisian agency working in the fields of architecture, urban planning, design and research.

This project will rethink these buildings, with a total surface area of 4,000 m2, around a historic central courtyard, and will design a new façade that is consistent with the existing buildings and open to the neighbourhood, creating a promenade that is open to all in a former private passage.