Sharp-Edged

The Foundation – its name a deliberate slight to those content to call themselves mere galleries – stood on avenue Hoche. Although only a few minutes from the Arc de Triomphe and surrounded by sedate stone-built Hausmannian buildings, it made no attempt to blend in with its more venerable neighbours. A six-story glass box, a mosaic of tiny embedded projectors transformed its façade into a massive screen of ever-changing colours and evolving shapes – a beacon to those whose appetite for glowing pixels was not sated by the smartphones ever-present in their hands.