The Soft Palace | Studio Ossidiana

Last summer, as the Pompidou was preparing to close its doors to the public, we began to imagine a nomadic embassy for the museum, which could travel and host its people, art, and events during the Beaubourg’s renovation. It’s first destination, the Salon d’Honneur, within the Grand Palais.

We thought of this place as a soft palace, an address for big and small assemblies, events, exhibitions, where to be together, play, discuss, listen, but also where one could hide, have a nap, choose to be alone, and find the intimacy of a shelter a few steps away from a public assembly or a performance.

We designed the Soft Palace as a vast textile surface, a carpet folded and rolled onto itself to become a gigantic garment, of which every crease and fold could be explored, and every pocket inhabited. Once we step on it, we can move barefoot, lay or sit anywhere, take a stroll between exhibitions, performances, and games, participate in the collective choreography of its movements and events, or peek from the sheltered privacy of a side pocket.

Within the Soft Palace, any place can become the stage for an assembly, an event, or a performance, and we hope that every visitor will be both actor and spectator in the collective choreography of its day to day life.

Text by Studio Ossidiana

General information

The Soft Palace is an installation developed as part of the Fun Palace, an initiative of Centre Pompidou x GrandPalaisRmn.

The project is hosting the video game Nightcrawlers by artist Alice Bucknell, and a selection of design pieces from the Centre Pompidou’s collection curated by Olivier Zeitoun and Marie-Ange Brayer. The Fun Palace is developed in collaboration with philosopher Emanuele Coccia and curated by Jean-Max Colard, Joséphine Huppert and Alice Pialoux.

The Fun Palace opened to the public from 6 to 15 June 2025
Grand Palais, Paris
7 avenue Winston Churchill 75 008 Paris

The Fun Palace is a co-production of the Centre Pompidou and GrandPalaisRmn with the support of the Chanel Culture Fund.

exhibition title: Fun Palace 
location: Grand Palais | @le_grand_palais 
on view: June 6th — 15th, 2025 
host: Centre Pompidou | @centrepompidou 
installation design: Studio Ossidiana | @studio_ossidiana  Alessandra Covini, Giovanni Bellotti and Klaas van der Molen
Studio Ossidiana team: Viktoria Bacheva, Pedro Daniel Pantaleone, Anna Halek, Ruth Gonzalez, Mariagiulia Pistonese 
video game designer: Alice Bucknell | @alicebucknell 
curators: Jean-Max Colard, Joséphine Huppert, Alice Pialoux, assisted by Daphné Carreras, 
producer of The Soft Palace: Luigi D’Oro Studio, Arguzia srl
curators of The Assembly of Objects: Olivier Zeitoun, in collaboration with Iris Carton Eldin 
head of design and industrial prospective: Marie-Ange Brayer collection attachée
design department: Mathilde Vallée 
production manager: Barbara Kugler 
sceneographer: Celine Coffin 
space manager: Charlotte Cochelin 
artworks manager: Nina Genonceau 
audiovisual management: Alexandre Lebugle
stage management: François Pegalajar, Robin Vieville, Fabrice Pleynet 
interpreters: Marguerite Capelle, Caroline Ferrard, Adèle Hattemer, Yves Tixier 
partnership coordination: Anaïs Izard, Camille Gorret 
photos by Riccardo de Vecchi