Raising glass to a dream

Bernard Arnault (left), chairman and CEO of LVMH, with Gehry. [Photo provided to China Daily]

Inside the exhibition, polite young ushers in tailored black trousers and crisp white shirts show visitors around. Emmanuelle Boutet, vice-president of communication, Louis Vuitton China, says that they recruited student volunteers and gave them two weeks of intensive training for the exhibition.

The show comprises a white space and a black space. The white space presents the historical and geographic context of the building, which is situated within the Jardin d'Acclimatation park in the Bois de Boulogne on the west side of Paris. Here visitors can learn about the genesis of the arts center and about some the events and exhibitions that are being hosted at the venue. One video shows French cellist Gautier Capucon giving a master class to students.

The dark space takes you on a journey through Gehry's creative universe, from his original free-form sketches of the building to all the models that were produced over the course of the project. They are installed in groups that trace the design of different aspects of the building, revealing how the design team progressively worked on the project. A team from Gehry's studio in Los Angeles spent two weeks installing everything.

"We worked on the exhibition in Paris last October and now we've moved the exhibits to Beijing. But the exhibition here is not exactly the same as that in Paris. It is specifically designed for the space in Beijing," says Humberto Barraza who has worked for five years with Gehry's studio.

The exhibition also highlights the investigation of materials that led to Gehry's development of the building's façade, including the 12 curved glass sail-like panels that make up its distinctive fragmented exterior.

"The project is a dream, so the first idea was to create a dream. I wanted to create a dream for Bernard Arnault (chairman and CEO of LVMH), who had been dreaming about this," the 86-year-old architect says in a video.