Fondation Louis Vuitton – The First Dramatic Images of a New Parisian Landmark

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Fondation Louis Vuitton (Credit: JB Gurliat/Mairie de Paris)

Unveiled in the last week is Paris’ latest architectural jewel on the edge of the Bois de Boulogne

The Fondation Louis Vuitton is a museum that will strive to promote contemporary art and sustain the considerable 20-year-old sponsorship history of the luxury LVMH group for future generations to come. It will open its doors to the public in September 2014. The slide show below gives a taste of what is in store for a new generation of art lovers visiting Paris.

A new temple dedicated to art is born and one which will soon be welcoming exceptional contemporary art collections. Conceived by the famous American architect Frank Gehry – the “father” of the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao – it is the result of the vision of Bernard Arnault and of the City of Paris to offer this enormous glass vessel as an audacious architectural gesture entirely dedicated to art and to culture.

64-year-old Arnault is chairman and CEO of LVMH since 1989 and is a renowned art collector and patron of the arts. The LVMH Group is one of the world’s leading luxury-brands companies. With annual revenues in excess of €28 billion, it includes such household names as wine producer Château d’Yquem, champagne producers Moët & Chandon, cognac brand Hennessy and fashion house Louis Vuitton.

The architectural challenge of this building has, according to the proud Mairie de Paris, already entered the annals of the most emblematic edifices of the 21st century. Frank Gehry’s building, which reveals forms never seen in architecture before now, is designed to reflect many of key characteristics of the Fondation Louis Vuitton: uniqueness, creativity and innovation.

The building combines the totality of methods, codes and modes of expression of the architect, while still representing a new stage in his career. It revolutionises the use of glass to give life to his vision of a building that is light, luminous and with a movement that will integrate harmoniously with a park from the end of the 19th century and which will house exceptional works of art.

Moving away from the classic approaches of dealing with glass in a building, he has developed a revolutionary method of shaping this material that allows curving to the millimetre and in various different manners for each of the 3,600 panels of the twelve glass “sails” that give volume to the enormous piece of architecture.

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