ernesto neto brings woven architecture to paris
The Nef Nord of Paris‘s Grand Palais holds a different atmosphere this summer, as the air carries hints of bark and damp earth to ground visitors even before they approach the heart of Ernesto Neto’s Nosso Barco Tambor Terra. Suspended like a slow exhale beneath the glass and iron canopy recently restored by Chatillon Architectes (see designboom’s coverage here), the work folds itself into the monumental volume without contesting it. Instead, it listens. It’s an architecture built by hand, with patience and porousness.
Unfurled across the nave is a kind of woven architecture, shaped in looping crochet, cords, and braided skins that seem to grow downward as much as they hang. Neto’s forms appear intuitive, improvised, yet hold their own internal order. The installation connects body to earth, rhythm to breath, and matter to movement. It asks to be entered slowly, to be touched, to be heard.
Ernesto Neto fills the Grand Palais with a woven structure | image © GrandPalaisRmn 2025 / Photo Didier Plow
Rhythm as Structure within the grand palais
There are instruments hidden inside artist Ernesto Neto’s work at the Grand Palais. Some are barely visible, folded into the skins of the structure like bones. Others invite touch directly. On designated days, musicians coax out their voices in performances that feel less like concerts than ceremonies. Drums from across continents — Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America — respond to each other and to the visitors’ presence. The sound emerges from within the piece, resonating through it like a pulse through a body.
This immersive environment forms the center of Nosso Barco Tambor Terra, though the boundaries remain open. Around the structure, the Grand Palais hosts ongoing activations: open conversations, workshops, live music, and play. A Brazilian café serves as a gathering point. The surrounding programming extends Neto’s vision outward, into dialogue and shared attention.
visitors can interact with the organic materials | image © GrandPalaisRmn 2025 / Photo Didier Plow
a woven membrane for gathering
Ernesto Neto speaks in a language of materials that resist polish. Bark and raw fiber, hand-woven mesh, suspended spice bundles — everything points to manual labor, to knowledge passed down through the body. The space becomes a collective membrane, a place where traditions drift together, not diluted but echoed. His approach to scale is as much emotional as physical. The monumental does not overwhelm here. It holds space for smaller, quieter things.
The setting amplifies this intention. After several years of restoration led by Chatillon Architectes, the Grand Palais reopens with renewed clarity just in time for the 2024 Paris Olympics. The freshly restructured envelope now plays host to something profoundly unmechanical, unhurried. The juxtaposition feels deliberate. Neto’s project is one of slowness and attention, rooted in the body and the ground beneath it.
Presented in collaboration with Lisbon’s MAAT and as part of the France–Brazil Season 2025, this exhibition expands the idea of architecture beyond construction. Neto frames it as something we move through with care, something that listens back. It makes room for rest and for ceremony. It leaves traces in the senses. And in the center of Paris, it becomes a vessel for learning and for dreaming.
drums inside the work are played during live shows | image © GrandPalaisRmn 2025 / Photo Didier Plow
the piece hosts workshops, concerts, and communal events | image © designboom
materials reflect ancestral craft and manual labor | image © GrandPalaisRmn 2025 / Photo Didier Plow
the restored Grand Palais offers a luminous setting | image © designboom
the project is part of the France–Brazil Season 2025 | image © designboom
the installation is co-produced by MAAT in Lisbon | image © designboom
project info:
name: Nosso Barco Tambor Terra
architect: Ernesto Neto | @ernestonetoart
location: Grand Palais, Paris, France
event: France–Brazil Season 2025
collaboration: MAAT
photography: © designboom, © GrandPalaisRmn 2025 / Photo Didier Plow
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