The customer was the billionaire Bernard Arnault, the owner of not only the Louis Vuitton brand, but also a series of other luxury brands - Givenchy, Moët & Chandon, Hennessy, etc. Since the middle of the last century, his company LVMH owned some privileges on land that has now turned into an ordinary park botanical garden (Jardin d'Acclimatation), bordering the Bois de Boulogne. It was on this border, on the site of the bowling alley acquired for this purpose, that Arno erected the building of the foundation. Therefore, during the construction, not a single tree was cut down, but many new ones were planted, and a water garden was created right next to the building.
In the 19th century on this site there was a public aquarium and a huge greenhouse - "palmaria". It is this legacy that inspired Frank Gehry's choice of materials: the museum is crowned with a structure of 12 glass "sails" with a total area of 13,500 m2. The complex configuration of their constituent panels required the construction of a special furnace. It was also difficult to create an "iceberg" - the main volume of the building, covered with 19,000 panels of Ductal fiber-reinforced concrete® many shapes and configurations. Glass "sails" are supported by a frame made of laminated veneer lumber.
The ambitious project provoked the outrage of Parisians worried about the safety of the Bois de Boulogne: the height of the future building (48.5 m) and its location, allegedly blocking one of the park paths, at the stage of steel construction
reason for legal action. The court of first instance took the side of the citizens, but with the support of the Paris authorities, the project was nevertheless implemented. LVMH received the rights to land under the building for 55 years, after which the museum and its site will become the property of the city.
Of the 11,000 m2 total area of the new building, 7,000 m2 is available to the public. The entrance to the building and its lobby simultaneously serve as the entrance to the park; there is a restaurant and a bookstore. Nearby is a convertible auditorium with 350 seats, suitable for all kinds of concerts and performances. It is decorated with the work of the artist Ellsworth Kelly. The 11 exhibition halls house works from the collections of Arno and LVMH, as well as works made especially for the new building, in particular, the installation "Inside the Horizon" by Olafur Eliasson.
It is also planned to organize 2 temporary exhibitions a year: now you can see there a small exposition about Gehry's project, complementing it
retrospective at the Center Pompidou. In addition, an extensive concert program is planned, which began with Sergei Rachmaninoff's Vocalise, performed by soprano Natalie Dessé at the grand opening of the building. The museum, together with Bernard Arnault and Frank Gehry, was opened by French President François Hollande.
The Louis Vuitton Foundation was created to support and develop creativity, and the first "artistic expression" Arno named the Gehry building in the Bois de Boulogne.
