the landscape of Fondation Louis Vuitton
Before my recent trip to Paris I re-read Walter Benjamin’s mind-expanding essay “Paris, Capital of the 19th Century,” which is actually an outline for an impossibly grand project Benjamin planned, a kind of archaeology of modernity’s (and the bourgeoisie’s) triumph in Paris. It’s an exhilarating review of the torrent of 19th century innovations, from Haussmann’s boulevards to railroads to Daguerre’s photos to the new department stores. These technologies transformed society, of course, but also very palpably transformed the experience of the city. Benjamin recalls Baudelaire, famous for his dark observations of Paris at this time. I don’t see the novelty and the street-theater of the city as darkly as Baudelaire and Benjamin do (I suppose I’ve embraced bourgeois amusements). The poet writes accounts of experiencing the new environments, and Benjamin gives us fascinating, astute expositions on the origins of modern urban experience. They remind us that these urban metamorphoses reflect deeper, unseen changes.
The latest addition to Paris’s pantheon is Frank Gehry’s Fondation Louis Vuitton (FLV), a très chic assemblage of cases of contemporary art. Situated in a lovely park in the Bois de Boulogne, it’s an exquisite object with an exterior draped in meticulously engineered curved sails of glass and metal.
The FLV is squarely in the Gehry category of inhabitable sculpture, which originated with his Guggenheim in Bilbao and includes the Disney Concert Hall in L.A. In my experience this Gehry vein can be unsatisfying. The results don’t work as actual sculpture — too many concessions to modern building neuter the gestural expression. And the interior spaces feel compromised to fit in the gesture. (My sister and I actually prefigured the Gehry building as young children — we would scrunch up a big thick blanket on the floor and use the resulting grottoes for our toy animals.)
The interior is the stack of cases — galleries — displaying the art. These galleries are austere by contrast, with gray floors and simple white benches.
They are spatially generous, and they work well. You won’t always remember where you’ve been and know where you should go next. Fun for the flaneur.
Inside it’s easy to forget the exuberant drapes, unless you look out a window. It can only be called narcissistic: every window I came across framed a view of the building itself, usually focusing on a particularly choice hinge joint or the curve of a wooden girder.
That prompts comparisons to Centre Georges Pompidou, which also has views of itself. But those views seem to frame Paris with dramatic tension — FLV feels more claustrophobic.
Benjamin writes of art nouveau, “It represents art’s last attempt to escape from its ivory tower, which is besieged by technology. [Its forces] find their expression … in the flower as the symbol of naked, vegetal nature confronting a technologically armed environment. The new elements of iron building— girder forms — preoccupy art nouveau.” This blend of nature and technology at the cusp of the 20th century is complex, intriguing.
A century later, Gehry’s different, but perhaps analogous, blend of advanced building technology and the spontaneous gesture sketch is also intriguing. In the end it seems to be trying a bit too hard to harness very large, very expensive building components to create the feeling of a light, free gesture.
As an architect, I am of course in awe of the construction feat. These Gehry buildings are absolutely brilliant in their realization. Unlike the monuments of the past, our large public buildings are full of systems — structural, fire suppression, air, light, electricity, plumbing, emergency — all installed by specialized teams. In a complex building like FLV, it is difficult to accurately coordinate and model these overlapping systems so that they co-exist harmoniously, without a stray pipe poking out, or a late-add emergency light running its conduit along a wall. This building is extraordinarily clean and exquisitely executed.
And once you emerge at the top, at the roof terraces, there is pleasure in these spaces. I still don’t feel the glass sails are adding much, but the playful composition of the decks makes an experience of delightful discovery, with views of the city.
Similarly, the basement-level patios and walkways, around a monumental water feature, are engaging, with restrained pieces by magician-artist Olafur Eliasson. It’s hard to get to this area — we had to detour through the auditorium, down its stairs, and out across the stage — but this is the world of 80's Gehry — playfully twisted forms dancing a crooked line, animated by water and light.
As I write this I look out my Brooklyn window to the Gehry-designed tower at 8 Spruce Street. This and the IAC office building demonstrate for me how the constraints of working in New York, for hard-nosed businessfolk, are actually useful. These buildings are wonderful members of their skylines and neighborhoods.
No doubt Benjamin would devour FLV: A wealthy fashion corporation builds a super-premium palais in a public park in a complicated deal with the city, drawing tourists who line up under the shiny metal logo until they literally overflow off the grounds of the museum.
This is our era: We certainly need buildings that push us to consider the possibilities for public spaces. And it is probably just reality that to accomplish them we need the fashion/fetish apparatus that follows along (the café called “Le Frank,” the array of books and even a material sample kit in the gift shop). And Paris, where we have long been wandering and gazing and indulging in the pleasure of metropolitan life, is as good a place as any. I’m looking forward to the new Whitney here in NYC, which has a mysterious allure of its own….
