We were delighted to discover that one of our favorite architects had created a modern masterpiece, right in Arles.
In 2021, prize-winning architect Frank Gehry revealed a stainless steel-clad cultural building, The Tower, for Luma Arles arts center. According to Gehry, the design references Arles' Roman architecture, nearby mountains and Vincent van Gogh's Starry Night painting, which was painted nearby. "We wanted to evoke the locale, from Van Gogh's Starry Night, to the soaring rock clusters you find in the region," said Gehry. "Its central drum echoes the plan of the Roman amphitheater."
The 184 ft. high arts tower contains exhibition galleries, archives, a library, offices, seminar rooms, and a cafe, and an incredible slide (see below). Clad with 11,000 irregularly arranged stainless steel panels, the distinctive tower was designed to be a landmark structure for the arts center, which was established in 2013 by Swiss collector Maja Hoffmann. LUMA Arles is an interdisciplinary creative campus where, through exhibitions, conferences, live performance, architecture and design, thinkers, artists, researchers, scientists, question the relationships between art, culture, environment, human rights and research.
Interestingly, the architect wanted to give the building a mineral appearance through its shape and its internal structure "impregnated with the local rocky landscapes." He even uses vocabulary elements from geology to characterize certain parts of the building such as the glass faults which run along the façade and connect the towers together.
We learned so much about Frank Gehry watching the introductory video. Wow.
This amazing 3 minute video is a time lapsed capture of the six years of construction of The Tower and offers a virtual tour of its finished wonder. Wow.
The above photo captures me watching Steve enjoying Carsten Höller's new iteration of Slides, an experimental project he has been producing for a number of years. This work, playful and evocative, questions what would be the effect and result of sliding if it was part of the daily routine. Indeed, from an architectural and practical perspective, the slides are one of the building's means of transporting people, equivalent to the lifts and stairs.
This 13 second video (sound on) showcases Steve's giddiness in this form of transportation. What a blast.
As we departed Arles, we kept admiring this building and did see it change with the light.
When finished, Mr. Gehry said of the Luma Arles Tower, "I think that my own art history and sense of Van Gogh’s presence in Arles was always in the back of my mind. I always kept thinking about what the light was like for him when he painted there. With the more naturalistic façade, we were able to make something that was not a single image but, rather, something that captured multiple images at different times of the day. I was excited by that, and I think we were successful. It changes all day and captures the light, and shows these different instances very proudly." Well said, Frank!
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