Louis Vuitton Foundation

The Fondation Louis Vuitton was commissioned by Bernard Arnault, the chairman of the luxury conglomerate LVMH, to serve as a private museum and cultural hub for the city of Paris. Architect Frank Gehry was brought onto the project in two thousand one after Arnault visited the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao and sought a similar architectural landmark for the French capital. The project was conceived not as a traditional building, but as a grand vessel of glass and light. Its design was specifically intended to harmonize with the historic nineteenth-century gardens of the Bois de Boulogne, where it now sits.