We were there! On Wednesday, March 8, 2017, Bernard Arnault, CEO of the LVMH group, and Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo unveiled a "cultural project for Paris of international scope" at the Jardin d'Acclimatation, following an agreement on a 50-year public domain occupancy agreement for this large disused building a few hundred meters from the Fondation Louis Vuitton : the former Musée des Arts et Traditions Populaires.
Bernard Arnault spoke of "a new kind of start-up, a cultural and philanthropic start-up, the Maison LVMH", a house of Arts Talents Heritage based around the LVMH businesses.
It took until January 2018 for the building permit to be validated, with construction starting in March 2018, whereas Bernard Arnault wanted to launch the project in December 2017.
The Maison LVMH at the Jardin d'Acclimatation is the place to be:
- A 2,600 m² concert hall, located in the western part of the building's base, with a capacity of 2,000 to 4,000 people,
- A 680 m² hall in the eastern part of the building, dedicated to smaller events and exhibitions,
- Artists' studios in close collaboration with the Fondation Louis Vuitton,
- An arts and crafts academy, with an arts and crafts documentation center and workshops for craftspeople with outstanding skills,
- A top-floor restaurant with an exceptional view of the Jardin d'Acclimatation
Built in 1972 by architects Michel Jausserand and Jean Dubuisson, this 15,000m² building has been abandoned for 10 years, following the closure and transfer of the MNATP collections to the MuCEM (Marseille). For more than 10 years, the question of the work to be carried out (mainly asbestos removal and redevelopment) had given rise to fears that the city, which owns the building, would be responsible for demolishing it, a decision that was unthinkable given the heritage value of the 8-storey building, which bears witness to the French architecture of the Trente Glorieuses period.
For the work, the LVMH group enlisted the help of Frank Gehry, architect of its little sister, the Fondation Louis Vuitton. It wanted to respect the architecture of the building, imagined by Dubuisson, and was able to take advantage of the advice of the architect's grandson to rediscover the original identity of the place, particularly in terms of lighting, circulation and transparency of volumes.
Now that work has begun, we can only hope that the schedule will be respected!
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Opening in 2020!
