The magnificent "hotel particulier" at 8 rue de Londres in the 9th arrondissement of Paris, seemed real enough … even if the people inside had their head in the Cloud, reports The Guardian.
There was no company name anywhere on the tall, stone building, but the mock street sign near the entrance suggesting "I'm feeling lucky" was a giveaway.
After much knocking the door opened. "Is this the new Google Cultural Institute?"
"Yes," the man at the door replied. "So it does exist?"
"Yes, but not for another hour when it opens."
The Google Cultural Institute, which until 5pm on Tuesday existed only the internet, took on a physical form with its inauguration in the real building housing Google's Paris headquarters.
If Google was "feeling lucky" about its new project in France, a country that has tended to see the American technology group as something of a cultural predator, it was wildly over-optimistic.
The culture minister, Aurélie Filippetti, who hours earlier had promised to inaugurate the institute, cancelled at the last minute. And no amount of computer technology could change that.
"Despite the quality of the projects concerned, I don't wish to appear as a guarantee for an operation that still raises a certain number of questions," Filipetti said on Tuesday.
Google says its institute will be open to "students, artists, curators, and other figures of the cultural world" and be a centre for conferences, debates, a showroom for technology, and a space for contemporary art exhibitions. It says the institute is an extension of its Google Art Project.
Read more of this report from The Guardian.