A Library of Craft in Stacked louis vuitton Trunks
For the France Pavilion at Expo 2025 Osaka, Louis Vuitton, and OMA / Shohei Shigematsu reveal a twin set up that transcends exhibition, structure, and immersive storytelling. Housed throughout the French Pavilion’s overarching theme, ‘A Hymn to Love,’ the collaboration carves out two distinct experiences — one rooted in heritage and the opposite propelled by creativeness — inviting guests to discover the enduring stress between custom and transformation.
The primary of the pavilion‘s two interconnected areas presents a towering archive of savoir-faire. Stacked from ground to ceiling, eighty-four open wardrobe trunks outline the room’s structure, making a glowing chamber that each shops and shows the model’s 160-year legacy of craft. Every trunk is fitted with bespoke compartments showcasing movies of craftspeople at work, reworking this ‘library’ right into a dwelling museum of approach. Warmly backlit like a lantern, the set up transitions from vivid openness to subdued thriller, reinforcing the symbolic arc from previous to current.
pictures by Marco Cappelletti, courtesy Louis Vuitton
the Rotating ‘Theater of the Future’ at expo 2025 osaka
Within the second room of Expo 2025 Osaka‘s France Pavilion, Louis Vuitton and the architects at OMA shift gears with a performative sphere — a monumental 6.6-meter globe composed fully of the brand‘s white Courrier Lozine trunks. The globe levitates inside a double-height area, rotating and transferring vertically in sync with a hypnotic video set up by Daito Manabe. In contrast to the introspective first room, this kinetic surroundings evokes a futuristic theater, enveloping guests in movement, mild, and sound. The sculptural object attracts on Expo iconography whereas reimagining the trunk, Louis Vuitton’s authentic design module, as a metaphor for exploration and reinvention.
Right here, the trunk turns into greater than only a container — it’s a constructing block. Shigematsu’s idea interlocks opposing spatial narratives: archive and theater, preservation and efficiency. ‘We created two contrasting areas with one module, the trunk,’ the architect explains. ‘One is constructed from stacked open trunks, the opposite a sphere created from trunks. Interlocked, the 2 juxtapose custom and transformation.’ The gesture additionally displays a deeper cultural resonance between France and Japan, emphasizing shared values of workmanship, precision, and innovation.
Louis Vuitton and OMA create a twin set up for the France Pavilion at Expo 2025 Osaka
the pavilion presents a glowing library of stacked LV trunks crammed with artisan tales
eighty-four trunks are stacked to grow to be immersive show modules
heritage craft is contrasted with a digital voyage
