Paris museum under way

PARIS — Plans have been unveiled for the building of an ethereal, fully transparent museum designed by architect Frank Gehry that will house a contemporary art collection in Paris.

Bernard Arnault, chairman and CEO of French luxury goods empire LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton SA, described the museum as "more of a cloud than a building."

The 45,200-square-foot museum, made mostly of glass and shaped with numerous sharp angles, is expected to go up in the vast Bois de Boulogne park on Paris' western edge between next year and 2010, at a cost of $126 million.

Arnault and Gehry were joined by Paris Mayor Bertrand Delanoe at LVMH headquarters to unveil a mock-up of the future Louis Vuitton Foundation for Creation building, aimed to house 20th- and 21st-century art.

"The idea of building a solid, strong and formal object appeared inappropriate to me in this green," Gehry said. He said the structure features rooftop terraces that offer views of the park, uniting indoors with outdoors and the city with the sky.

He praised the site — whose use still requires approval from the City Council — and called the project a "heavenly assignment" because Paris is his "favorite city."

On show will be works by Pablo Picasso, Mark Rothko, Damien Hirst, Jean Dubuffet and others, but the building itself will likely attract admirers of Gehry, designer of Spain's Guggenheim Bilbao museum, considered by many to be his masterwork and one of the world's great modern buildings.

"My intuition tells me ... this will be your masterpiece," said Delanoe.