What could consecrate the career of an archistar more than a Pritzker Prize, a Golden Lion for Career Achievement at the Venice Biennale and iconic architectures spread across every corner of the globe? Well, appearing on the Simpsons, of course, the adored series which featured Frank Gehry in 2005. Back then it was Marge Simpson who commissioned a Concert Hall for the entire community of Springfield, but today, the archistar returns to sign off on a future icon requested by Maja Hoffmann, collector, patron, and founder and president of the cultural LUMA Foundation, which is soon set to inaugurate its cultural campus in Arles, in Southern France. In fact, if the pandemic allows it, the Foundation will officially open its gates on June 26. Here within the Parc des Atelier, the space will recover a former railway depot ready to become a point of reference both visually and culturally thanks to the new tower designed by Gehry’s studio.
For the Foundation, which addresses relationships between art, culture, environment, human rights, education and research, the master of Deconstructionism has designed a tower with nothing to envy of his other sculptural architectures around the world. The same metallic surface of the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles and the Guggenheim of Bilbao is here placed vertically with 11,000 stainless steel panels, rising 50 meters to reveal only a small section that’s uncovered, supported by the rest of the body. As is always the case in Frank Gehry’s projects, what excites is the original encounter between architecture and light, which in Arles assumes an even deeper meaning. It’s the light itself of this city that attracted Vincent van Gogh in 1888, who captured its panoramas in over 300 works, sharing the Trinquetaille bridge, the Place Lamartine and the old mill of Rue Mireille with the globe. And it was Gehry himself who “wanted to evoke the local, from Van Gogh's Starry Night to the soaring rock clusters you find in the region” and the “Roman amphitheater,” especially for the base.
The tower juts upward from a circular body attached to the ground, recalling the city’s amphitheater. Spanning three floors, the volume hosts a ticket office, a bar and a conference hall, while the tower’s seven floors include the Foundation’s offices, laboratories and a bar complete with a panoramic terrace on the last floor. Next to the tower, the campus encompasses seven former industrial buildings — four of which were brought back to life by Selldorf Architects, founded by Annabelle Selldorf. Since summer 2015, designers have worked on the various spaces, renovating and adapting them to host exhibits and cultural events. First among them is “Les Forges”, which will host photo and art exhibits, followed by “Mécanique Générale” and then “La Formation”, a third building inaugurated in May 2018 and designed as a residence and rehearsal space for artists. While awaiting completion of the last building, even the external park has begun to take form under the attentive eye of Bas Smets and his Bureau.
Here then, the city that became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1981, recently acting as a backdrop for Gucci’s 2019 Cruise runway and hosting a prestigious photography festival each year, will take on a new international importance thanks to the LUMA Foundation. With its stunning architecture and highly anticipated cultural program run by an incredible team of curators put together by Maja Hoffmann, the Foundation is set to welcome Tom Eccles, Liam Gillick, Hans Ulrich Obrist, Philippe Parreno and Beatrix Ruf.
