Sketching Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris – a drawing tutorial by Dan Hogman

Paris is known for its cultural heritage; the city is one of the world’s leading destination when it comes to arts, music, museums, festivals, and other cultural attractions. So, when our regular columnist Dan Hogman visited the French capital, he decided to stop at Fondation Louis Vuitton and marvel at the wonder.

Designed by renowned architect Frank Gehry, the art museum responds to the setting of the Jardin d’Acclimatation (a children’s park) and retains the 19th century tradition of glass garden buildings.

Since its inauguration in October 2014, the building has become a cultural landscape icon and every year welcomes more than a million visitors from across the world.

As Hogman draws a sketch on a blank page, he familiarises us with the unique and bold building, that the architect calls ‘a magnificent vessel symbolising the cultural calling of France’.

A part of his ‘Travel Notes’ series, this video is divided into seven sections, describing the entire process of a sketch. The building’s design is an assemblage of white blocks (called icebergs) clad in panels of fiber-reinforced concrete, surrounded by 12 glass ‘sails’ supported by wooden beams. As many as 3,600 panels form the Fondation's 12 sails to the 19,000 panels of Ductal (fibre-reinforced concrete), each one unique, providing the iceberg its immaculate whiteness. And therefore, the building reflects the water, woods and garden and continually change with the light.

The two-story structure has 11 galleries, a 350-seat auditorium on the lower-ground floor and multilevel roof terraces for events and exhibitions.

However, Hogman believes that Gehry goes overboard while designing this building. Maybe it’s the huge budget of the building, the nautical flourishes or the fact that this architectural piece is a gift that the neighbourhood was initially not keen on receiving.

Tell us what you think of this arts and cultural centre in the comments below.

For more videos by Dan Hogman, click here.