A Tower Like a Painting: The LUMA Cultural Foundation in Arles

Arles’ new arts and culture centre had a modest start: in 2013, Swiss art collector and patron Maja Hoffmann established the LUMA Foundation with the aim of repurposing an 11-hectare former railway repair depot as a venue for exhibitions and events. Over the subsequent years, the buildings on the grounds − workshops, an old foundry, a training centre and the former cafeteria − were renovated and converted according to plans prepared by New York architect Annabelle Selldorf. Now, in 2021, the conversion work has reached a preliminary end. In the Centre Médico-Social, the old depot’s building devoted to medical and social care, Selldorf Architects have set up a hotel with eleven rooms where a double room costs around 320 euros. On the outdoor areas of the grounds, once a concrete wasteland, Belgian landscape architect Bas Smets has created a green dune terrain featuring a pond fed by the nearby canal, which also waters the 500 trees newly planted on the former railway grounds.
Frank Gehry’s 56-metre tower ensures that the LUMA grounds will attract architecture pilgrims as well as art enthusiasts. The twelve-storey building rises from its base, which is 18 metres tall and boasts a glass façade. Along with the three lower storeys, the two building parts accommodate a broad range of functions: 2,000 m² of exhibition space, offices, archives, a library, seminar rooms and a café.
The interplay of Euclidean and free-form shapes is what makes Gehry’s tower design unique. Its structural backbone is a segmented circular tower for the lift and stairs; this is clad with sandstone-coloured, prefab concrete elements. In contrast, the curvy façade of the office and administrative levels and the Members’ Floor, which is peppered with window cubes, consists of around 11,000 reflective stainless-steel panels. In Gehry’s vision, this area is a loose reinterpretation of the rock formations found in the Alpilles mountains northeast of Arles. Unlike many of Gehry’s other buildings, the metal sheeting here does not create a smooth shell, but rather resembles a tiered cliffside. The effect is fairly picturesque − quite in keeping with the paintings of Vincent van Gogh, whose style was decisively shaped during his time in Arles.