Bold addition to Paris skyline gets art to match

Paris

WHEN it opened in October, the Louis Vuitton Foundation museum was such an audacious addition to the landscape here that all eyes were on the architecture and its creator, Frank Gehry. At the time, it seemed that the art on view - from the foundation's collection - was little more than an afterthought, and few details were disclosed about future programmes.

But it turns out that Suzanne Page, the foundation's artistic director, was secretly working on an exhibition of modern masterpieces to open in April with loans from institutions around the world including Edvard Munch's The Scream, Matisse's Dance and Leger's Three Women (Le Grand Dejeuner). A lyrical confection of glass, concrete, timber and steel set on the western edge of the Bois de Boulogne, the building was the most radical design since I M Pei's 26-year-old glass pyramid in the courtyard of the Louvre. Critics called the new building a sailboat, a crystal palace, a spaceship, even a whale.