The building, in Wood de Boulogne in Paris, is one of the most astonishing contemporary architectures, one of the greatest expressions of Canadian architect Frank Gehry. It alone is worth a trip to Paris.
But what an impertinent question!
It's a warm morning, and Paris has just woken up, the day I walk to pay due homage to the new temple of art built by Frank Gehry. A photo in which the Canadian architect raises his middle finger at a journalist, guilty of having asked him if architecture is entertainment, has been circulating on the web for a few days.
Actually it was from the days of genius Guy Overflowing that no one asked such a question ... but so be it: the image went around the world and the usual two alignments that characterize all disciplines took to the streets: "Gehry he is a fool!” “No, he's right”, “He's too old now”, “He's too stressed” etc. etc. For those wishing to learn more about the subject, the details are , promising, told by the "New Yorker".
The truth is another: perhaps it would be foolish to ask whether architecture is only part of the widespread spectacle that characterizes our time, but it is nonetheless legitimate to ask whether people are tired of a certain type of architecture, of the so-called "major works ”, of luxury architecture and everything that, once built, occupies the environment that surrounds us without occupying our reflections on architecture. Well, maybe that's the point.
A spectacular building
The building, for heaven's sake, is fabulous and I understand it as soon as I enter the park from the river of people flowing towards the park entrance, they pass it, to head towards a gigantic structure halfway between a cloud and an animal carapace. From afar you can perceive all its grandeur and majesty and you are amazed.
The handbags are clearly a pretext: this is an exhibition space to the nth degree and a journey inside creation and its meanders that characterize the work of Gehryand Vuitton at the same time. Both, in fact, place the accent on the creativity of a work which, despite the results of luxury, starts from a meager craftsmanship.
Scholarships super chic by Vuitton have been advertised for many years by an anonymous hand who sewed the seams by hand. In turn, the models of Gehry they are often made with waste materials, assembled at best, while simulating a certain sprezzatura typical of creative genius. No wonder, then, that these two giants of creativity have teamed up to give life to a very ambitious exhibition space project in the city that already hosts the Center Pompidou by Renzo Piano and Richard Rogers.
La Foundation Louis Vuitton
Costing approximately 143 million dollars, the headquarters of the Foundation Louis Vuitton it was conceived and wanted by Bernard Arnault, the president and CEO of LVMH Louis Vuitton MoëtHennessey, the French-speaking luxury multinational. It's not the first time of Gehry in Paris: many years ago, before Bilbao, we traveled in Europe between Prague and Paris to see live the works of Gehry.
While the so-called Ginger and Fred in Prague, more recently renamed with the horrid nickname of "Dancing House" designed by Gehry with Vlado Milunic between 1992 and 1996 remained unknown to most, theamerican center, finished in 1994 and briefly open to the public until 1996, in its shyness and with its character so European with some American flash really seemed the dawn of a new era.
Hosts of students, including yours truly, made pilgrimages to the park of Bercy which hosts it, to take some photos of this building which, playing with the colors and materials of Parisian architecture, gently deconstructed them. Recently redesigned to host the Cinematheque French, the first Parisian building of Gehry enters into an interesting dialogue with the new commission, in the way they both transgress and they reset the limits set by the environment and the Parisian urban history.
The French against Gehry e Arnaud
Gehry against Gehry? Not really, but perhaps some element of contradiction is present in the work of the great architect and it is no coincidence that the creation, in the advertising posters that accompanied the landing of this insect-building, is defined as "a journey".
Like any journey full of obstacles, delays and sudden changes of plans, the building was born in the mind of the client and architect in 2001, after Arnault, fascinated by the Guggenheim Bilbao, began to think about a venue for his art collection. High fashion and architecture: who better than Gehry could have given an identity to this ambitious project in the Jardin d'Acclimatization, a children's playground with a few animals to watch behind the nets and swings, slides and artificial mounds, just outside Paris' elegant XNUMXth arrondissement.
With the elegance of the brand and the artificiality of the park, Gehry it seems to be at ease: the building is all about an alternation of views, a change of heights and perspectives in the frame of perfect materials and surfaces.
The one to whom Gehry perhaps he was not prepared, however, it is the fighting spirit of the French who did not like that a private building, designed and built outside the tight links of the French bureaucracy, was housed on land perceived by most as belonging to the public domain, even though having arisen on a part of the park given in concession to LVMH.
The straight leg entrance of Gehry e Arnault in the sphere of Republic, however, has not altered the global perception of this building until despite the protests of some groups NIMBY (Not In my Back Yards) ushered in the company from around the world of international art to acclaim worthy of the LargePalace, of which the Parisian building is a legitimate descendant.
Undisputed master of museum architecture
The first impression is that Gehry by now he has learned to build museums and the like and has now become the undisputed master.
Having become with the Guggenheim Bilbao the bad master of architects who at his freedom from the chains of exhibition galleries "white cube” were inspired to fill the world with parabolic curves and glass walls that drove conservators and curators crazy at the beginning of our century and beyond, Gehrynow designs its buildings starting from the exhibition galleries, pristine temples to contemporary art that guarantee visitor satisfaction (La Foundation Louis Vuitton is not built on a gesture of patronage: the entrance ticket costs a good 14 €).
The building is introduced by a staircase of water which, flowing in a continuous cycle, forms a mirror onto which a 350-seat auditorium and offices overlook. The stairway can also be used for fashion shows once the water that flows there day and night is closed, surrounding the building with a very pleasant waterfall background. At water level, a splendid installation of Olafur Eliasson welcomes visitors and lends itself to photographic services by mobile phone: this is practically the implicit message of the work entitled Inside the Horizon in which viewers are invited to post their photos on social media of artist and foundation.
The interior
The interior is that of a very functional building in which, having forgotten the free hand that generated it, Gehry reconciles with the Le Corbusier of Church of ronchamp, still today the most powerful symbol of French rationalist architecture.
The beautiful is now reconciled with the useful and the works of Thomas chutes and Bertrand Lavier, among others, find an environment that welcomes them generously, highlighting their majesty. Also the retrospective exhibition on Gehry hosted on the second level, it is elegantly cared for and set up by Frederic Migayrou and the models, accompanied by Pierre's music boulez, they can also be admired by non-architecture experts.
The coating and the view
Going up the levels, one realizes that the building is actually made up of two very distinct parts: a museum of 11.700 square meters of reinforced concrete on which the so-called "icebergs" are grafted, i.e. about 19.000 irregular panels of an innovative material composed of fiber and concrete that lets the light filter in, giving the building character.
As an outer dress, Gehry he chose large glass sails fixed on complex joints of wood and high-tech steel that open onto Paris and the Atlantic sky with its fast-moving clouds. Gehry dialogue with Piano here: the Parisian museums are not only containers for art collections but they are also devices for looking at the city, which has always loved to be an open-air diorama, an enormous scenography on which the life.
It just seems that the creation of Gehry it will follow the fate of the Eiffel Tower, always loved or hated to the point of pushing Guy de Maupassant to eat there every day so as not to see that tower, which he viscerally hated. At the Foundation Louis Vuitton the restaurant is even called "Le Frank", it opens onto the greenery of the Jardin d'acclimatization and the Eiffel Tower is invisible. I wonder if Maupassant revived would ever come here to eat. Maybe.
