Fondation Louis Vuitton

Category: Art & Architecture

Location: Paris; France

In 2014, one of the most spectacular of Paris art museums opened its doors to the public for the first time.

Fondation Louis Vuitton is a non-profit entity of the LVMH group and is known for its spectacular architecture, as well as for its artistic content.

Working in the tradition of Deconstruction, Frank Gehry found inspiration in the glass ceilings of the Grand Palais, as well as the Palmarium, built for the Jardin d'Acclimatation in 1893, but turned this inspiration into fragments, put together in radically new ways for the Louis Vuitton museum project. 

The two-story structure has eleven galleries of different sizes, a voluminous 350-seat auditorium and multilevel roof terraces for events and art installations. 

The resulting glass building takes the form of a sailboat’s sails inflated by the wind. 

These glass sails envelop the “iceberg”, a series of shapes with white, flowery terraces. 

There was a practical reason for the construction. 

Previously, there was a bowling alley on this site, and Gehry was forbidden from designing anything larger than the old building. 

Anything that was higher or wider than that, had to be made of glass. 

More than 400 people were involved in the creative process, and the construction took many years to complete. 

It was not easy for LVMH to create a new landmark in a town as conservative as Paris, especially as one of the city’s trademarks is its low skyline, accentuated today only by the Eiffel Tower and Montmartre’s Sacré-Cœur.  

The art centre is however not visible from the rest of the city, hidden in the greenery of the vast park Bois de Boulogne in the outskirts of Paris. 

Visiting the museum requires some planning, as the queues tend to be long, and so booking a time for entry is advisable. 

Also, the building is at its most stunning when seen in the sunlight, when the sun is reflected in the curved glass of the “sails”. 

Don’t miss the art installation in the outside area of the ground floor, by artist Olafur Eliasson, a subtle interplay between shadows, light, water, and stone.

After 55 years, the agreement is that the museum will be donated to the city of Paris.