Bernard Arnault has paid homage to the late Frank Gehry, the brilliant Canadian-born architect who passed away on Friday in Los Angeles.

 
For Arnault, Gehry designed the Fondation Louis Vuitton, widely seen as the most important work of contemporary architecture ever commissioned by a luxury brand.
 
Gehry died aged 96 Friday after a short respiratory illness, bringing to an end a truly remarkable career that included buildings such the highly acclaimed Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles and titanium-clad Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, his greatest masterpiece.

“I am profoundly saddened by the passing of Frank Gehry, in whom I lose a very dear friend and for whom I shall forever retain boundless admiration. I owe to him one of the longest, most intense, and most ambitious creative partnerships I have ever had the privilege to experience. His oeuvre, crowned by the Pritzker Prize, is immense. He will remain a genius of lightness, transparency, and grace,” Arnault said in a release.
 
In October 2014, in the presence of French president François Hollande, Gehry and Arnault opened the Fondation Louis Vuitton, a brilliant Deconstructivist building with a price tag that ran to some €800 million. Riffing on late 19th-century French architecture which revolutionized the use of glass like the Grand Palais and combining that with computer technology and 3D design, Gehry created a beautiful structure. Built on the edge of the Bois de Boulogne, its unique shape suggested a giant sailboat gathering wind in its sails.
 

“Frank Gehry – who possessed an unparalleled gift for shaping forms, pleating glass like canvas, making it dance like a silhouette – will long endure as a living source of inspiration for Louis Vuitton as well as for all the maisons of the LVMH group. With the Fondation Louis Vuitton pour la Création, he bestowed upon Paris and upon France his greatest masterpiece, the highest expression of his creative power, commensurate with the friendship he bore our city and the affection he showed for our culture,” Arnault added.
 
Gehry was to go on a design several stores and handbags for Louis Vuitton and has two more buildings in the pipeline for the luxury marque. A super-store concept building on Rodeo Drive in LA, due to open in two years, and an adjacent structure beside Louis Vuitton Foundation. 
 
“My wife, my children, and I express our deepest condolences to his wife, Berta, and to his children,” concluded Arnault.