Architecture for Culture: Rethinking Museums by Béatrice Grenier

Join us for a conversation with Béatrice Grenier to celebrate her new book, an in-depth and richly detailed examination of museums as sites of cultural and historical importance. She will be in conversation with Abraham Thomas and Jeanne Gang, followed by a signing.

PLEASE NOTE: RSVPs are encouraged but not required. Seating is limited and will be first come, first served. Doors open at 5:30 pm.

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Architects rethink and reinterpret one of the most important and innovative typologies of recent decades: the museum.

Museums are flourishing across the globe: in recent decades, no other architectural form has witnessed such remarkable growth and diversification. In an era when the digital revolution enables us to preserve our shared memory and artistic heritage without the constraints of physical space, this phenomenon might seem like an unnecessary indulgence.

Yet, by examining new icons and rereading historical examples, Architecture for Culture : Rethinking Museums shows why museums remain essential. They serve as the repositories for the encyclopedia of 21st-century knowledge, help make our cities legible and ensure that art remains a vibrant presence in the spaces where we live. The museum is revealed as a venue where architecture refines its discourse on method, identity, and urban context; it is also a dynamic laboratory for the continuous development of a new cultural policy—one that must address itself to a planetary audience.

Béatrice Grenier is a Paris-based curator, writer, and editor. She is currently Director of Strategic Projects and International Programs at the Fondation Cartier pour l'art contemporain. Between 2020 and 2025 she worked closely with Ateliers Jean Nouvel on the institutional transformation and architectural project of the new Fondation Cartier. She curated the exhibition The Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain by Jean Nouvel (2025), a Collateral Event at the Venice Architecture Biennale and is co-curator of Exposition Générale, the inaugural exhibition of the Fondation Cartier’s new spaces at Place du Palais-Royal in Paris. She is the author of Architecture for Culture: Rethinking Museums (Rizzoli, 2025) and Tashkent: A Modernist Capital (Rizzoli, 2024) and the editor of Infinite Memory (Lenz Press, 2024). She is the Paris desk editor of ArtAsiaPacific and a regular contributor to contemporary art and architecture publications such as Domus, Log and the Journal of Curatorial Studies. Béatrice Grenier was previously based in New York, where she worked with internationally acclaimed artist Cai Guo-Qiang to realize large-scale public art projects.

Architect Jeanne Gang is the founding partner of international architecture and urban design practice Studio Gang. Known for designs that strengthen connections between people, their communities, and nature, her award-winning projects across the Americas and Europe include the Gilder Center at the American Museum of Natural History and an expansion of the Clinton Presidential Center.

Abraham Thomas is the Daniel Brodsky Curator of Modern Architecture, Design and Decorative Arts at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Previous positions include the Smithsonian Institution (2016-20) where he was Curator-in-Charge of the Renwick Gallery, and Senior Curator at the Arts and Industries Building. Prior to this, in London, he worked at the V&A as Curator of Designs (2005-13) and served as Director of Sir John Soane’s Museum (2013-15). Working primarily on architecture and design of the 19th century to the present day, his research interests include the broader intersections with graphic design, photography, fashion and film. He serves on the jury of the LOEWE Foundation Craft Prize, and as a Trustee of Penland School of Craft in North Carolina.