LUMA Arles
An arts campus in Arles crowned by Frank Gehry’s shimmering steel tower.
LUMA Arles is a creative campus founded by the collector and patron Maja Hoffmann through the LUMA Foundation. It occupies the Parc des Ateliers, a former SNCF railway yard on the edge of Arles's historic centre, where the old industrial halls have been turned into exhibition, performance and research spaces.
Its landmark is Frank Gehry's tower, which opened in 2021. Its twisting facade of thousands of stainless-steel panels over a glass drum is said to recall the rocks of the Alpilles and the light Van Gogh painted. Inside and around it, including in a public park designed by Bas Smets, LUMA stages contemporary art exhibitions, archives, residencies and experiments in ecological design.
Highlights
- Frank Gehry's stainless-steel tower
- Converted railway halls such as La Grande Halle and La Mécanique Générale
- Bas Smets's public park with a lake
- Carsten Höller's slides inside the tower