Arab World Institute

This guide to the Arab World Institute in Paris centers on the south facade Jean Nouvel designed in 1987: two hundred forty motorized metal apertures built as a modern mashrabiya, tracking the sun and echoing the geometric patterns of the Alhambra. It follows the ambition behind the mechanism and what the Arab state representatives who commissioned it made of the idea, then turns to an architect's later admission about the apertures themselves. Stand along the quai and watch the shifting light patterns it throws across the reading rooms inside.