Fondation Louis Vuitton Design

1/15/2016

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#FabDesignFriday
By Natasha Gan

Nestled inside a 19th century park in the West end of Paris, lies the show-stopping Fondation Louis Vuitton. The Louis Vuitton-established venue was designed by renowned architect Frank Gehry and funded by Bernard Arnault, chairman of LVMH and one of the richest men in France.

After a 10-year journey from concept to reality that costed around $143 million, Fondation Louis Vuitton opened in October 2014. It serves as a cultural foundation and a museum that displays Arnault's personal collection with the aim to promote contemporary art both locally and internationally.

The two-storey Fondation is a sprawling 11,700-sqm. It boasts 11 galleries of various sizes, a 350-seat auditorium and roof terraces. Twelve curved sails and 3,600 glass panels flare all around its exterior, resembling a sailboat with billowing glass sails in the middle of a woodland. Gehry took inspiration from Grand Palais, a large exhibition hall and museum complex in Paris. Reportedly, 400 of the architect's employees were involved in the design process.

“To reflect a constantly changing world, we wanted to design a building that evolves depending on the time of day and the light, in order to create an impression of intangibility and continual transformation,” Frank Gehry says in a statement.

The result is a groundbreaking and fearless site that is referred to as “a major work of art for the whole world”.

Photos by Fondation Louis Vuitton

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Natasha Gan
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Natasha is a writer and a digital marketing professional currently based in Toronto, Canada.