Plans for a fully transparent museum designed by architect Frank Gehry were unveiled Monday in Paris where the museum — if approved — will hold a contemporary art collection.

Bernard Arnault, chairman and CEO of French luxury goods empire LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton SA, described the museum as "more of a cloud than a building."

The 45,200-square-foot museum will be made mostly of glass and shaped with numerous sharp angles. It is expected to go up in the vast Bois de Boulogne park on Paris' western edge between next year and 2010, at a cost of $126 million.

The park setting influenced his design, Gehry said.

"The idea of building a solid, strong and formal object appeared inappropriate to me in this green," Gehry said. He said the structure features rooftop terraces that offer views of the park, uniting indoors with outdoors and the city with the sky.

He praised the site and called the project a "heavenly assignment" because Paris is his "favorite city."

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STILL NEEDS APPROVAL

Arnault and Gehry were joined by Paris mayor Bertrand Delanoe at LVMH headquarters to unveil the mock-up of the future Louis Vuitton Foundation for Creation building, aimed to house 20th- and 21st-century art.

Delanoe said he planned to present the project to the city before year-end, and expected full approval in time for a groundbreaking next year.

BETTER THAN BILBOA

The museum will house works by Pablo Picasso, Mark Rothko, Damien Hirst, Jean Dubuffet and others. The building itself, however, will draw more attention to Gehry, designer of Spain's Guggenheim Bilbao museum. The Bilbao museum is considered by many to be his masterwork and one of the world's great modern buildings.

"My intuition tells me ... that this will be your masterpiece," Delanoe said.

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