French president François Hollande officially opened a new cultural centre by French luxury brand Louis Vuitton on Monday, reports RFI.
The huge ship-shaped structure made of glass, will be open to the public at the end of this week, who can visit it in a botanical garden just outside of Paris. Its uncanny design is the creation of American architect Frank Gehry.
French luxury brand magnate (LVMH) Bernard Arnault says the Fondation was a dream come true. The new culture centre comprises galleries for a permanent contemporary art collection - including works from Arnault’s own collection, but not only - and for temporary exhibitions, an auditorium, bookstore, restaurant, terraces and water features.
Arnault chose American architect Frank Gehry to house his dream and carry the flag of the Fondation.
The huge ship-shaped structure sporting curved glass-panelled ‘sails’ and sitting in shallow water, is the work of Canadian-US architect Frank Gehry who also designed the Guggenheim in Bilbao and the Cinémathèque at Bercy in Paris. As a tribute to Gehry, the restaurant overlooking the gardens, from whose ceiling is suspended a shoal of luminous white, fluttery fish, is called Frank.
His massive work is cleverly and discreetly open from one of the galleries onto the sky.
Elsewhere, except for the other galleries where art work is exhibited, the building is open to light.
Overwhelmed at the reception he received in the Paris he loves, Gehry says he now sees things in the finished construction that he’d like to alter. He considers that its shape, which conveys a sense of movement, is also in any case, open to change. The Fondation built in glass, wood, metal and specially white-clad concrete (‘icebergs’) could one day find itself painted in another artist’s colours for example.
“Daniel Buren has an idea for the building, and I hope that one day he will do it. It won’t be my building then. I hope that it will be decorated with pictures done by children.”
The building is as avant-garde as they come. Specialists say it defies the laws of architecture, and is already being studied by future generations.
At 80 something years old, Gehry says one of his aims is to take architecture forward.
Read more of this report from RFI.
See also: Frank Ghery-designed LVMH Paris art centre readies for opening