Frank Gehry’s ‘cloud of glass’ unveiled in Paris

http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2014/oct/17/frank-gehry-cloud-glass-unveiled-paris

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When architect Frank Gehry unveiled his plans for a museum shaped like a massive glass cloud in the heart of Paris it looked little more than a few squiggles on a piece of paper.

Even Gehry, whose celebrated works are often cited as among the most important in contemporary architecture, had difficulty finding words to describe what he hoped to create.

“It’s a cloud of glass - magical, ephemeral, all transparent … it’s not stodgy,” he told the Guardian back in 2006.

On Friday, Gehry’s glass cloud – which has also been nicknamed The Iceberg, but is officially the Louis Vuitton Foundation – was unveiled.

As promised, the massive glass, metal and wood structure – commissioned by Bernard Arnault, president of the French luxury goods group LVMH and France’s wealthiest man – appeared to float ethereally over one of France’s oldest parks, the Jardin d’Acclimatation.

In the past seven years, the scribbled sketches became a total of 60 scale models, packed up in wooden boxes and flown with Gehry and his team across the Atlantic from the Canadian-American architect’s base in Los Angeles every two months.

There were legal battles brought by disgruntled locals to halt construction, and more than a few headaches for the structural engineers tasked with ensuring the building – with its 3,600 glass panels made in special ovens by the Saint-Gobin factory in Italy, massive wood beams from the Black Forest, and metal structure – would stay up.

“This project is a dream, so the first idea was to create a dream. I wanted to create a dream for Bernard, who has dreamed all of this. The idea of creating a glass building that is transparent, ephemeral, and like a cloud is difficult to achieve in architecture,” Gehry wrote in the foundation’s first creative journal.

The building boasts an auditorium – pianist Lang Lang will give the first concert in it on 28 October, followed by Kraftwerk on 6 November – a stepped waterfall sourcing a moat, a restaurant and art galleries for permanent and temporary exhibitions.

On Friday, as colleagues heaped praise on Gehry, 85, for what was described as a “truly unique … and already historic building”, Jean-Paul Claverie, Arnaud’s advisor, described Gehry as “the king of Paris today”.

Claverie told journalists that the building, constructed on public land that is protected, will revert to the Paris city authorities in 50 years.

“It is a present for the city of Paris, for France and for artists,” Claverie said.

“This museum is a symbol of the artistic vitality of Paris. It is something extraordinary for France and for Paris. The whole world is looking at us.”

Gehry, however, joked – at least everyone hoped he was joking – that he was not entirely happy with the building.

“I am looking at it and I see everything I would like to change because we designed it seven years ago so now I have other ideas,” he said.

He added: “The idea was to make a building that is not static, something that is a work in progress, that purposefully doesn’t look finished and, I think, inviting people to interact with it over time.”

The building will be officially inaugurated by president François Hollande on 20 October, and opened to the public on 27 October.

Back in 2006, Gehry pointed at his squiggly sketches and told the Guardian that when the building was finished he wanted young people to look at it and say: “What is that?”

On Friday, as the sun gleamed off the gigantic glass “sails” partially open to the elements, a group of youngsters strolling along the road to the Bois de Boulogne stopped to take photographs.

“Wow!” said one. “What is that?”