Louis Vuitton Foundation

Louis Vuitton Foundation

Established	20 October 2014; 9 years ago (2014-10-20)
Location	8 Avenue du Mahatma-Gandhi 16th arrondissement of Paris, France
Coordinates	48°52′36″N 2°15′48″E / 48.87667°N 2.26333°E / 48.87667; 2.26333
Visitors	1.4 million (2017)
Architect	Frank Gehry
Owner	LVMH
Website	fondationlouisvuitton.fr

The Louis Vuitton Foundation (French: Fondation d'entreprise Louis-Vuitton), previously Louis Vuitton Foundation for Creation (Fondation Louis-Vuitton pour la création), is a French art museum and cultural center sponsored by the group LVMH and its subsidiaries. It is run as a legally separate, nonprofit entity as part of LVMH's promotion of art and culture.^[1] The art museum opened on October 20, 2014, in the presence of President François Hollande. The Deconstructivist building was designed by Canadian-American architect Frank Gehry, with groundwork starting in 2006. It is adjacent to the Jardin d'Acclimatation in the Bois de Boulogne of the 16th arrondissement of Paris, bordering on Neuilly-sur-Seine.^[2] More than 1.4 million people visited the Louis Vuitton Foundation in 2017.^[3]

The actual cost of the museum, initially projected to be €100 million, was revealed in 2017 to have been nearly eight times that sum. A November 2018 report of the Court of Audit indicated that from 2007 to 2014, building construction constituted the main activity of the Foundation. Earlier that month, FRICC, a French anti-corruption group, filed a complaint in court in Paris accusing the Louis Vuitton Foundation of committing fraud and tax evasion in the construction of its museum. It claimed the nonprofit branch of the LVMH conglomerate was able to deduct about 60% of the cost of the museum from its taxes and request tax refunds on some other costs. In all, FRICC claimed LVMH and the Louis Vuitton Foundation received nearly €603 million from the government toward the nearly €790 million construction costs of the museum.^[4][5][6] In September 2019, the case was dismissed.