The new building will be located on the LUMA Arles campus, a complex of railway repair shops that have been converted into a space for the creation and display of experimental works that combine different types of art. In honor of the beginning of construction, an exhibition of Gehry's works "The Chronicles of Solaris" was opened in one of the buildings, where prominent contemporary artists entered into a "dialogue" with the models of his buildings and projects.
The LUMA Arles Art Foundation and its 8 hectare campus is a project of the Swiss art collector and patron Maja Hoffman. She allocated 100 million euros for the construction of the Gehry building. In addition, five existing industrial buildings are being renovated by Selldorf Architects in New York: the first of them will be ready in July 2014. There will also be a park designed by the Belgian landscape architect Bas Smets.
Gehry's Art Resource Center project was first presented to the public at the Venice Architecture Biennale in 2010, but has since shrunk in size due to demands from local authorities: the two towers originally conceived obscured views of the medieval bell tower. It was decided to replace the facade material from foam aluminum with stainless steel.
The architect was inspired by the famous Roman amphitheater in Arles (reminiscent of the glass cylinder that encloses the base of the building), the outlines of the nearby mountains and the work of Vincent Van Gogh in and around Arles, including the famous Starry Night.
The building will house a research and information center, rooms for workshops and seminars, artists' workshops and spaces for exhibitions and presentations. The opening is scheduled for 2018.
