Frank Gehry is one of the most influential architects of our time. His distinctive style fully solidified in the contemporary cultural imagination in the late 1990s with his design for the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao. He combines everyday materials with complex, dynamic structures. As a trailblazing, poetic thinker who has never stuck to a common practice, Gehry has spent more than half a century turning the meaning of design in architecture on its head. Along the way, he has developed an innovative and unmistakable approach that is anchored in the representation of movement, and which never ceases to enchant. And recognition has followed: Gehry has been honored with some of the most prestigious awards in architecture, from the Pritzker Prize in 1989, to receiving the Presidential Medal of Freedom from Barack Obama in 2016.

Upon invitation from LVMH in 2014, and inspired by 19th-century French glass and garden architecture, Gehry developed a boundary-pushing design for the Fondation Louis Vuitton, located at the edge of the Jardin d’Acclimatation in the Bois de Boulogne. The momentous inauguration of the ship-like structure ushered in a new and revitalized era for the French capital as a destination for contemporary art. As Gehry explained, his intention was to ‘design, in Paris, a magnificent vessel symbolizing the cultural calling of France.’ Indeed, in the years that followed, something that began as a sketch, arguably helped reintroduce the City of Light to seasoned art professionals as a dynamic hub. To mark a decade since this vision became reality, Louis Vuitton is holding a presentation at Art Basel Paris with a booth celebrating the longstanding collaboration between the Maison and Gehry.

The Frank Gehry Studio helped conceive the booth; the highlight is a 4.5-meter-long sculpture in the form of a fish, by the architect himself. To allow for free movement around the installation, the artwork will be suspended under a wooden structure. The fish, as Gehry fans are well aware, is a recurrent motif in his architectural designs, and a form in which he finds abundant inspiration. In fact, Gehry even declared that a fish’s body was ‘the model for the future of architecture because it expresses sculptural movement.’ Interestingly, his fascination for fish started in the 1980s, as a negation of the Postmodernist trends that were popular at the time. ‘Some of my architectural colleagues became enamored with a show of Beaux Arts drawings at the Met in New York, and some of them began to incorporate historical architectural details into their work – what later became known as Post-Modernism,’ Gehry recounts. ‘They were reacting to the sterility of Modernism, and they felt that historical ornament was the solution. Architecture for me is about creating in the time that you are in, not replicating the past. I don’t know where this came from, but I said, if you feel the need to go back in time, don’t go to the Romans and the Greeks, go back 300 million years earlier to Fish!’

From the attitude encapsulated in this statement, followed a deep engagement with the form and movement of fish. ‘I realized that their shape and that feeling of movement was something that I wanted to start capturing in a building. Movement became my ornament.’

In addition to this key work, the booth will also include several architectural models and drawings of the iconic buildings Gehry has designed for the French Maison. Gehry produced numerous models for the Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris in materials such as wood, plastic, and aluminum. It is through these that he fine-tuned the lines and shapes that lend the iconic building its sense of movement. Gehry’s design for the Maison Louis Vuitton Seoul – the first retail space he ever created – was unveiled in 2021 in the Gangnam shopping district. This will also be featured in the presentation via sketches and models. The five-story building was designed to appear inviting, like ‘a lantern on the street,’ and its curved glass panels that stretch up toward the sky echo the sail-like elements of the Fondation Louis Vuitton’s building.

The architectural marvels that emerged from Gehry’s collaboration with Louis Vuitton have also been interpreted into playful designs for trunks, handbags, and even exquisitely sculptural Murano glass perfume bottles, part of Les Editions series. These will be showcased at Art Basel Paris as well, shedding light on the process behind the products, from preliminary drawings to experimentation with materials. For Gehry, the intention behind the process itself is no different whether he is constructing a museum or an iconic fashion item. ‘In both, I am trying to elicit feelings from inert materials,’ he says. ‘What Louis Vuitton brings to the table is a deep respect for artists and the artistic process. That process is collaborative and iterative and not always linear. We try things, we bump into things, we see what works and what doesn’t.’

Amid the models and sketches of Gehry’s architectural work, the presentation of some bags of the Louis Vuitton x Frank Gehry limited-edition handbag collection, will spotlight some of these conceptual and formal links. ‘Working inside the shape meant that we started exploring texture, color, and graphics more than we might have if we were starting from scratch,’ Gehry explains. All of the ten pieces relate to a different aspect of the architect’s work or directly reference a specific emblematic building. Each was rendered in a variety of techniques that meld innovation and experimentation, using the know-how and craftsmanship of the Maison. And each has a unique story to tell.