Le Large Opens Its Doors on Île Seguin

Some islands hold on to their past. Île Seguin, in the middle of the Seine at Boulogne-Billancourt, has been holding on to its Renault factory for a very long time.

Today, it starts letting go. The new contemporary art center Le Large opens its doors this Saturday — a free opening weekend, October 17 and 18, with pre-registration required — on the tip of an island that made cars for most of the twentieth century.

The inaugural exhibition is called “Imaginary Engine,” or Moteur Imaginaire, curated by Cecilia Alemani. The title says everything. Renault’s own collection goes into dialogue with 17 newly commissioned works: 120 works by 55 artists from 23 countries, on view through March 7, 2027. An engine, imagined — the factory’s ghost turned into art.

Let me tell you about this island, because it matters. The Renault works were the beating heart of Billancourt. The 4CV — France’s little postwar car, the one that put ordinary families on the road — was born here in 1947. The factory ran through the boom years, through the strikes and the legend of the Billancourt worker, and then it stopped. The last car came off the lines in 1992.

Since then, Île Seguin has been a beautiful problem. For more than three decades, grand plans came and went. A foundation for contemporary art here. A cultural complex there. Each one announced, each one stalled. Parisians learned to lower their expectations for the island. The one big success — the Seine Musicale, opened in 2017 — finally proved the place could hold a crowd.

Now Le Large arrives as the centerpiece of the Pointe des Arts complex, a €450 million development. The building was designed by RCR Arquitectes with CALQ: 5,000 square meters of exhibition space on the island’s point, all curves and openness. The director, Paula Aisemberg, has chosen a model that feels deliberately un-French and quietly radical: a non-profit with no dedicated collection of its own. The focus is on public access, on showing work, on giving the French art scene a stage — not on acquiring trophies.

I find that choice telling. France’s great museums are fortresses of holdings. Le Large wants to be a room where things happen.

For American readers, the formula will feel familiar. We have our own cathedrals of industry reborn as culture houses — the factories turned museums, the warehouses turned galleries. It works when the past isn’t erased but converted. A Moteur Imaginaire, indeed.

Go this weekend if you can. The opening is free, you just need to register in advance. Walk the island, look across the Seine, and stand where the 4CV was born — in a building that finally gives Île Seguin its second act.