Today, the LVMH Group announced the opening of the Fondation Louis Vuitton on Monday, 27 October 2014. The Foundation will be located in a building commissioned by LVMH CEO Bernard Arnault, and designed by the American architect Frank Gehry. Resembling a cloud of glass, the art museum is set in the Jardin d’Acclimatation in Paris, in the northern part of the Bois de Boulogne.
The Fondation Louis Vuitton’s mission is to encourage and promote contemporary artistic creation both in France and internationally. The collections and programmes will continue the tradition of artistic and creative movements of the 20th and 21st centuries.
The building for the Fondation Louis Vuitton includes exhibition galleries dedicated to the permanent collection, temporary exhibitions and artists’ commissions. It is completed by a flexible auditorium for the presentation of multi-disciplinary performances and events.
Its terraces offer unique panoramic views of Paris and the lush greenery of the Jardin d’Acclimatation, the inspiration for Gehry’s architecture of glass and transparency.
“With the Bois de Boulogne and the Jardin d’Acclimatation, the idea of a glass pavilion at once became a must. It seemed to me out of place to design a solid object: my quest was to express the idea of transparency,” said Gehry, who imagined a magnificent vessel among the trees.
The Fondation Louis Vuitton will present an exhibition showcasing the architectural project created by Frank Gehry for the foundation. The exhibition will be presented in dialogue with the first European retrospective of Gehry’s work presented by the Centre Pompidou, from October 2014.
The Fondation Louis Vuitton is a corporate foundation and a private cultural initiative dedicated to art and artists. The foundation represents a new phase in art patronage and in the culture initiated by LVMH in France and around the world over the past two decades.
