The archive · Marketing & Growth · Marketing decision · 2024
Nike turns the Centre Pompidou into a museum-scale stage where sport becomes art
Over the 2024 Paris Olympic summer, Nike wrapped the Pompidou in athlete visuals and opened an 'Art of Victory' exhibition celebrating Nike Air.
Nike
What it had to solve
The Centre Pompidou's avant-garde heritage had influenced Nike's own design language, so when Nike wanted to celebrate sport and victory it did not buy an ad — it took over the museum itself, opening the world to sport across façade, galleries and street.
How it works
In the summer of 2024, Nike took over the Centre Pompidou in Paris, transforming the museum into a living celebration where sport and victory became art. The museum's avant-garde influence on the brand inspired the campaign, which opened the world to sport across the Pompidou's façade and interior spaces.
Outside, visuals of international athletes ran across Europe's largest outdoor sport installation — 5,492 square metres of the building — and captivated millions of passers-by. Inside, the 'Art of Victory' exhibition celebrated the unending journey of Nike Air, which the campaign called sport's most revolutionary innovation.
The design did not stop at the walls. Nike's takeover extended down to ground level with a commissioned skateable sculpture and digital ecosystems, so the whole precinct became part of one art-and-sport statement. The work is archived in D&AD's awards archive.
Why it lands
- It used the museum's avant-garde legacy as the reason the campaign existed, not as a backdrop.
- Athlete visuals on a 5,492 m² façade turned the museum itself into media that millions encountered.
- 'Art of Victory' framed Nike Air as culture, lifting a commercial product into an institution's canon.
- Carrying the design into a skateable sculpture and digital ecosystems made the takeover a total environment.
What it did
The takeover reframed Nike Air — the brand's most revolutionary innovation — as museum-worthy art and put athlete imagery in front of millions in central Paris. The project is archived in D&AD's awards archive under spatial and graphic design.
What you can take
Borrow an institution's authority instead of renting an audience: when the museum treats the product as culture, the brand arrives pre-elevated — scale one idea across façade, gallery and street.
Since then
The takeover ran through the Paris 2024 summer and is archived in D&AD's awards archive under spatial and graphic design, where the 5,492 m² façade installation and the 'Art of Victory' exhibition remain the documented centrepieces.
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