Frank Gehry designed it, Korean actor Gong Yoo attended it: Louis Vuitton’s new Seoul opening
Louis Vuitton has been called one of the world’s leading patrons of the arts, and for good reason. The luxury house’s new flagship Louis Vuitton Maison Seoul store brings together two celebrated international architects, some of the best living artists and designers and one of the most important sculptors of the 20th century for its inaugural gallery exhibition.
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The store was opened with a ceremony on October 30 attended by international and Asian celebrities such as Alicia Vikander, Chloë Grace Moretz, Mark Ronson, Claudia Kim, Gong Yoo, Jessica Jung, Jung Woo-sung and Karena Lam.
The first thing visitors will notice when approaching the building is the undulating glass facade. Layers of great curved sails twist and turn in the trademark style of Frank Gehry, ascending skywards as if blown by a violent storm.
A decade after completing his iconic, titanium-clad Guggenheim Museum Bilbao in the 1990s, he designed the landmark Fondation Louis Vuitton, a private arts centre in Paris.
This marks the first collaboration between the 90-year-old Gehry and 70-year-old fellow American designer, Peter Marino, who did the interiors of the building’s five floors.
“When I heard that Peter was going to be involved, I was keen to work with him. I respect him and I like him. I would change some of his stuff and he would change some of my stuff but there were no clashes,” says Gehry.
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The Seoul Maison’s glass structure takes its cue from the design of Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris. “Once I start down a line of working with materials, which was very successful in Paris, I like to continue exploring it and this is a further exploration, and hopefully there will be other ideas in glass.”
They include a 12-metre-high entrance hall with small, surrounding private salons and intimate lounges on the third floor, which houses a private space and terrace for dinners, events and exclusive appointments.
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Marino also curated the many artworks shown in the store, created by Mark Hagen, Marcello Lo Lo Giudice, Brendan Smith, Luigi Mainolfi, Martin Kline, Harmony Hammond, Bernard Aubertin and Anselm Reyle.
“The interior spaces were designed with a Miesian rigour to strongly emphasise the billowing energetic sculptural quality of Gehry’s exterior. The interior stone flows in from the exterior,” Marino explains. “The dynamism of the rectangular volumes cleanly contrast with the baroque glass shields of the building,” says Marino.
“Art is everywhere. Display is crucial; and we follow the same philosophy that art must be of the highest quality.”
The building’s size also allows for permanent display of Objets Nomades, an exquisitely crafted collection of designer furniture and objects Louis Vuitton started in 2012. In its permanent home of the Fondation Louis Vuitton, the private art collection of the luxury brand and its boss Bernard Arnault now attracts more than one million visitors each year. Smaller galleries within flagship stores around the world host temporary displays taken from it.
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They began with Espace Louis Vuitton Paris, which opened in 2006. Display halls in Tokyo, Venice, Munich and Beijing followed. The first exhibition of Espace Louis Vuitton Seoul displays eight emblematic pieces by the iconic Swiss sculptor Alberto Giacometti (1901-1966). Today, he is considered so important in his home country that he has adorned its bank notes.
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The Seoul Maison’s glass structure takes its cue from the Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris and is a collaboration between Frank Gehry and Peter Marino