The customer was the richest man in France, billionaire Bernard Arnault, owner of the LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton luxury goods group. The new building will display works of art belonging to both himself and his group. The location for the building was chosen in the west of Paris, in the so-called "Botanical Garden" at the edge of the Bois de Boulogne.
The project is a glass cloud (as Frank Gehry himself defined it), in which more substantial volumes of exhibition halls are “wrapped”. An underground auditorium and a restaurant are also planned there. The architect told reporters that he changed metal for glass in this project under the influence of wonderful works of glass by French craftsmen. The "magical, ephemeral, completely transparent" structure is designed to reflect the spirit of Paris and the fashion industry. Gehry would also like the new exhibition center to attract young people with its unusual appearance.
Arnault's initiative is designed, according to the tycoon himself, to reflect the creativity of the French nation. During the presentation of the project, he was supported by the Minister of Culture Renaud Donnedier de Vabre and the Mayor of Paris Bertrand Delanoe, who promised all kinds of support to the new museum.
At the same time, Arnault's undertaking reminds of the recent failure of the owner of the Gucci Group, Francois Pinault, who was going to build in Paris, in the former Renault industrial zone on an island in the middle of the Seine, a museum for his collection of modern art designed by Tadao Ando, and which allegedly failed due to resistance bureaucrats. At his press conference, Bernard Arnault rejected all attempts by journalists to draw parallels between the two projects.
