On the site of a former bowling alley in the Bois de Boulogne, next to the goat mountain, pagoda and enchanted boat rides of a charming children’s park, two powerful personalities meet. One is Frank Gehry, the 85-year-old architect from Los Angeles, the other Bernard Arnault, chairman and CEO of the LVMH luxury goods conglomerate, whose personal net worth is estimated at $29.6bn(£18.4bn). Together they have created a building for the Fondation Louis Vuitton, a huge white-sailed object, a detumescent Sydney Opera House, for exhibiting the foundation’s collections of contemporary art. A decade in the making and of undisclosed budget, it is built on public land with LVMH’s money. In 2062 the building, but not the art, will pass to the city of Paris.
Gehry is often burdened with the ugly title of “starchitect”, meaning a quasi-celebrity with a conspicuous stylistic signature which is applied regardless of function, context, sense or budget to grandiose vanity projects. This is unjust. There have been times when Gehry has let himself be abused in this way, but his buildings at their best are generous, thoughtful and responsive, with a high degree of attention to the ways in which they are built.
Arnault is a man of exceptional influence, with a clear desire to make his architectural mark on Paris, and a determination to get his way. His plans to renovate La Samaritaine department store, an art deco palace beside the Seine, have encountered fierce opposition. The Fondation, meanwhile, was successfully challenged by local groups dedicated to protecting the Bois, on the grounds that it broke rules intended to preserve the character of the park, and the project was stopped by the relevant tribunal. Eventually a special law was passed by the Assemblée Nationale that the Fondation was in the national interest and “a major work of art for the whole world”, which allowed it to proceed.
Approaching the front door, you are left in little doubt as to whose glory the building serves. It wears like a big diamante brooch the intertwined letters LV, glittering in the sun. All around are the dazzling white curves, palpably expensive, of Gehry’s architecture. The building is massive, dominating its surroundings. It is a coalition of brands, of LV and Frank, and looks much as if it might be a work of starchitecture after all. The question with this project is which Gehry, the serious architect or the hired signature, wins.
In the official explanation, the design is inspired by the whimsical structures of the Jardin d’Acclimatation, as the children’s park is called, and by the glass houses that previously stood on the site. Marcel Proust is mentioned, and the evocation of times past. The design is also said to serve two different visual experiences, the internal viewing of art and wide panoramas of Paris, Eiffel Tower and all, that can be had from its roof terraces.
There are multiple metaphors of nature and geology – icebergs, a canyon, a grotto – and the building stands in a sort of sunken lake, with a cascade of water descending into it. Then the metaphors mix, go from natural to nautical, and the glass sails come into the story. Twelve of them drape the rock formations underneath, in complex, multiply-curving shapes of a kind that require advanced software to make. Some provide shelter to the roof terraces but some just hover in space, objects of almost pure decoration, like the abundant nudes and cupolas you find in the beaux-arts architecture of 19th-century Paris.
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