The Jardin d'Acclimatation in the outskirts of Paris will welcome the massive 126,000 square foot Foundation Louis Vuitton museum, which will house 11 galleries, all containing the corporate art collection of LVMH.
The museum’s spacious auditorium will also be used as an event space. LVMH’s manager of philanthropic activities, Jean-Paul Claverie, told French television station TF1 that the new facility is a “small payback to the public, and to our employees.”
"It will express the artistic, cultural and emotional values, as well as the art of living, promoted by Bernard Arnault and the LVMH group, but it is truly a charitable foundation, devoted to the public as a whole," he explained.
Canadian-American architect Frank Gehry designed the building to resemble a cloud of glass and 3,600 glass panels form 12 curving snails. The inaugural exhibition by Gehry is themed around the development of the museum and will run until January 5, 2015, which will run in tandem with his exhibition at the Centre Pompidou.