Paris has a new contemporary art centre. Large, known in French as "le Large," opened on Saturday 17 October on the Ile Seguin, a slender island in the Seine west of the capital. The six-storey building is the latest philanthropic venture of the Emerige property group and the centerpiece of the Pointe des Arts development, a 450 million euro complex that also includes an eight-screen cinema, offices, retail space and, from November, a luxury hotel.

The island's redevelopment has been decades in the making. For most of the 20th century the site housed Renault's main car factory, which closed in 1992, and successive attempts to build there by figures including the collector Francois Pinault and architects Renzo Piano, Jean Nouvel and Tadao Ando all collapsed. Large's copper-scaled, diamond-panelled building, designed by the Catalan firm RCR Arquitectes with the Paris agency CALQ, finally breaks the jinx.

Unlike the private museums of the Cartier and Louis Vuitton foundations, Large is a non-profit institution with no permanent collection, and its stated mission is public access and support for the French art scene. Director Paula Aisemberg says art will greet visitors from the moment they enter the 2,500-square-metre wedge of exhibition space. The inaugural show, "Imaginary Engine," curated by Cecilia Alemani, takes the island's automotive history as its theme, pairing works from Renault's own art collection, the Fonds Renault pour l'Art et la Culture, with 17 new commissions from contemporary artists.

The opening lands days before Paris Art Week, adding a major new venue to a city already absorbing the arrival of Art Basel Paris and the Grand Palais's reopened programme.