Les Réserves in Romainville, a new home for Frac Île-de-France

After Paris and Rentilly, the regional collection of contemporary art (Frac) is about to open its third exhibition space in Romainville, in the departement of Seine-Saint-Denis.

Boasting a total surface of 2,000 m², Les Réserves have been designed to serve simultaneously as a storage and exhibition center for the Frac Île-de-France collection. A project by architecture agency Freaks, this new three-story building is a welcome addition to a territory already synonymous with contemporary art. On a rehabilitated industrial site, its neighbors include an artist’s residence, a fashion and design school, the association Jeune Création, and the galleries united under the Komunuma banner: Air de Paris, In Situ – Fabienne Leclerc, Sator gallery, and Jocelyn Wolff gallery.

Frac will now have enough space to preserve its collection built up since the 1980s – nearly 2,000 works in a wide array of formats, representative of the diversity of contemporary art. According to Freaks, “the new building has been entirely designed for storing and moving the works from the collection. On the first floor, it includes an indoor street accessible to trucks transporting artworks. The different heights of each platform, respectively five meters, four meters and three meters, make for a storage hierarchy based on the different formats of the works”. More than three-quarters of the surface area of Les Réserves will be devoted to this storage and conservation function, including “optimized climate control” for the most fragile pieces.

Across three floors and 400 m², the central part of the building will be dedicated to receiving the public and exhibitions. With “Sors de ta Réserve”, the art center will feature works “chosen by the public, as well as discussions, meetings and art workshops”. This initiative will allow a constant renewal of the selections, with six new sessions a year. And there’s more to Les Réserves: thanks to “architectural effects of transparency”, visitors will get a glimpse behind the scenes of the site, and follow the different professionals involved in the organization of a contemporary art exhibition.

Les Réserves were built on the initiative of the Île-de-France region and co-financed by the French Ministry of Culture. The new Romainville site will be inaugurated on November 27th for the launch of the exhibition cycle “Children Power”, which will also associate Frac’s other exhibition spaces, Le Plateau in Paris and Le Château in Rentilly.

Les Réserves – Frac Île-de-France
43 Rue de la Commune de Paris, 93230 Romainville
+33 (0)1 76 21 13 33 (à partir du 15 novembre 2020)
www.fraciledefrance.com