The Fondation Louis Vuitton, designed by Frank O. Gehry and due to be completed in 2014, is a museum for contemporary art, located next to the Jardin d’Acclimatation in the Bois de Boulogne. It houses around 3500 m2 of exhibition space in 11 galleries of varying size and volume, a 350-seat auditorium, a bookstore, a restaurant, and administrative areas. Its mission is to “enable a broad public to enjoy a multitude of artistic creations, deepening LVMH’s ongoing commitment to promoting culture.”
The building is organised on three main levels; basement, ground floor and first floor. Its principal interior galleries are relatively simple, box-like volumes constructed in concrete. Around these are situated smaller-scale side galleries, whose forms are more playful and sculpted. These spaces are connected by a circulation zone, which acts as a central element of the experience, offering multiple opportunities to pause, with views out to the surrounding woods. The journey through the museum is completed by an external circulation route leading to a series of terraces on three levels, stepping up from east to west. The entire building is wrapped in a series of glass sails, or “verrieres”, which serve as a permeable enclosure for the terraces and exterior circulation zones, defining their volumes and sheltering users from the elements. The resulting spaces are unique, while the nature of the glazed surfaces themselves are ethereal, blurring the sense of enclosure and breaking down the distinction between the building and the sky.
Both the construction system selected and the detailing and execution of the verrieres for the Fondation Louis Vuitton support the architects’s intention to create a rich and varied experience combining contemporary art display with a strong connection to the surrounding woods and the Jardin d’Acclimatation.
(Matt King, Jacques Raynaud)
The building is organised on three main levels; basement, ground floor and first floor. Its principal interior galleries are relatively simple, box-like volumes constructed in concrete. Around these are situated smaller-scale side galleries, whose forms are more playful and sculpted. These spaces are connected by a circulation zone, which acts as a central element of the experience, offering multiple opportunities to pause, with views out to the surrounding woods. The journey through the museum is completed by an external circulation route leading to a series of terraces on three levels, stepping up from east to west. The entire building is wrapped in a series of glass sails, or “verrieres”, which serve as a permeable enclosure for the terraces and exterior circulation zones, defining their volumes and sheltering users from the elements. The resulting spaces are unique, while the nature of the glazed surfaces themselves are ethereal, blurring the sense of enclosure and breaking down the distinction between the building and the sky.
Both the construction system selected and the detailing and execution of the verrieres for the Fondation Louis Vuitton support the architects’s intention to create a rich and varied experience combining contemporary art display with a strong connection to the surrounding woods and the Jardin d’Acclimatation.
(Matt King, Jacques Raynaud)