THE success of (the luxury goods conglomerate) LVMH is based on a strategy that combines timelessness and extreme modernity to create its products. I hope that the same spirit lives on in this foundation,” said Bernard Arnault, billionaire CEO of LVMH Louis Vuitton during the creation of its corporate foundation.
The Louis Vuitton Foundation is not merely a building. It is a private cultural initiative with the aim to promote and support contemporary art to a wider French and international public. Began in 2006, it is part of a program of patronage of art and culture developed by the group for over 20 years.
As for the structure designed by American architect Frank Gehry, the Louis Vuitton Foundation parlays a new cultural adventure aside from enshrining a site dedicated to contemporary art. Its mission is collection and programming rooted in the history of artistic movements of the 20th and 21st centuries. In the words of Arnault, it is “a new space open for dialogue with a wider audience, and offers artists and intellectuals a platform of discussion and reflection.”
The development of the foundation took place over the course of 14 years. In 2001 the idea of a collaborative project was launched after Arnault visited Frank Gehry’s Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain. In October 2006 the birth of Louis Vuitton Foundation was announced in the presence of Renaud Donnedieu de Vabres, then-French minister of culture and communication, and Bertrand Delanoë, then-mayor of Paris. Three months later an agreement to occupy 1 hectare of land on public domain at the edge of the Jardin d’Acclimation in the Bois de Boulogne was reached with the city of Paris. In August 2007, the building permit was granted, and in March 2008, construction began.
A model of the Louis Vuitton Foundation was unveiled at the Centre Georges Pompidou during the exhibition Masterpieces in 2011. Metal frames were soon attached to the “iceberg.” The last stone was laid on December 18, 2013, which was followed by a reception at the building on February 28.
Finally, the Louis Vuitton Foundation was opened to the public just this October 27, following the development of final landscaping which took place during the spring.
Said Arnault: “We wanted to give Paris an exceptional place for art and culture that also challenges and evokes emotion. By giving Frank Gehry [this opportunity], we have achieved an icon of the 21st century.”
Frank Gehry’s building, which reveals forms heretofore never imagined, was brainstormed to reflect the Louis Vuitton Foundation’s uniqueness, creativity and innovation. Gehry chose the transparent lightness of glass as his medium in an architectural endgame that combined vision with the daring innovations offered by cutting-edge technology. From the invention of curved millimeter forms to 3,600 panels of 12 glass “sails,” the structure is the product of unique design processes.
To achieve its first sketch, Gehry looked to inspiration from the lightness of glass and garden architecture of the late 19th century.
The architect then produced many models in wood, plastic and aluminum, playing with lines and forms, and creating movement in the process. The choice of materials was obvious.
Glass envelopes would cover the body of the building. These assembling blocks now compose the “iceberg,” giving it volume and momentum. The final model was then scanned to provide a digital model of the project which saw completion and is now open to the public.