The Paris Universal Exhibition of 1900 may be best remembered for giving rise to the Eiffel Tower, but the monumental event also left behind another enduring City of Lights landmark: the Grand Palais, which returned to the spotlight this summer as a venue for the 2024 Olympic Games. Granted, before the Art Nouveau building was ready to host tae kwon do and fencing matches, it had to get back into shape.

Thankfully, it had a good trainer. Since 2021, Chatillon Architectes has been working on a loving refresh of the historic 72,000-square-metre monument based on careful study of archival plans by the original designers: Henri Deglane, Albert Louvet, Albert Thomas and Charles Girault. Olympians experienced the first stage of this ongoing transformation, which stripped away walls in the glass-roofed nave to reintroduce a sense of openness and provide deeper public access — all while polishing up the space’s elegant metalwork.

Updates continue through next year, as the Centre Pompidou in Paris is slated to eventually move into the Grand Palais galleries while it undergoes its own tune-up.