Uchronia brings monumental floral installation Le Grand Bouquet to the Grand Palais
Le Grand Bouquet by Uchronia is a monumental floral installation created for the Grand Palais in Paris, occupying the historic Rotonde d’Antin following the building’s four-year renovation. Led by designer Julien Sebban, the Paris-based multidisciplinary studio developed the project in direct conversation with the architecture of the rotunda, translating floral details already present in its floors and decorative mouldings into an immersive composition of oversized petals, colour and light. Positioned at the centre of the hall, the installation appears to grow from the building itself while introducing Uchronia’s expressive visual language at an architectural scale.
The design of Le Grand Bouquet originates from details found throughout the Rotonde d’Antin, particularly the floral motif depicted in the floor mosaic and the plant-inspired mouldings that decorate its arches. Stylised luminous petals rise from the centre of the floor and extend into the surrounding volume, following the circular movement of the rotunda and directing the eye upward toward the ceiling. As visitors move around the installation, its overlapping forms are seen against different sections of the historic interior, establishing changing relationships between the contemporary intervention and the ornamental architecture that inspired it.
The experience begins outside the Grand Palais, where an inflatable entrance structure positioned on the forecourt introduces the project before visitors reach the rotunda. Its generous proportions and colourful forms contrast with the classical order of the façade while establishing a visual transition between the city and Uchronia’s floral environment inside. Within the building, the project changes material and structural character through a monumental framework produced by Atelier François Pouenat, whose expertise in artistic ironwork and metalwork provides the installation with the stability required for its scale while preserving the lightness suggested by its expanding petals.
Le Grand Bouquet was designed as an environment that visitors can occupy as well as observe, with furniture and tactile surfaces extending the installation across the base of the monumental flower. Tréca Paris developed large Marguerite beds that provide places to sit and spend time beneath the structure, complemented by fabrics from Lyon-based Manufacture Prelle and furniture from Tiptoe’s collaboration with Uchronia. FENIX surfaces appear across the table tops, while Chromatic and Seigneurie developed colours and finishes that reinforce the installation’s luminous palette and reveal variations in texture across its different materials.
Through the monumental flower, Uchronia uses joy as a means of resilience and connection, inviting visitors to gather around a familiar natural form transformed to the scale of the Grand Palais. The installation encourages a shared experience in which colour, craftsmanship and imagination become tools for bringing people together, particularly within a cultural context often shaped by uncertainty. Its floral imagery also establishes a direct relationship with the historic interior, allowing contemporary scenography to develop from decorative elements that have long formed part of the architectural identity of the Rotonde d’Antin.
Founded by Julien Sebban in 2019, Uchronia works across architecture, interior design, scenography and collectible furniture, with expressive colour, craftsmanship and narrative environments recurring throughout the studio’s practice. Le Grand Bouquet brings these disciplines together through contributions from specialist French manufacturers and artisans, connecting metalwork, textiles, furniture and surface finishes within a single spatial composition. By enlarging the floral vocabulary already embedded in the Grand Palais, Uchronia creates an installation that belongs to its specific architectural setting while offering visitors a new way to experience the recently renovated Paris landmark.
Phtography by Romain Moriceau with courtesy of Uchronia
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