Parc des Ateliers, Arles, France
Gehry’s crumpled metal tower is the glittering icon of a new cultural campus in the south of France where high ideals and extravagance feel at odds
I am looking at a wall surfaced in salt. It is the wall of a lift lobby in the Luma art complex in Arles, France, and comes from the salt pans in the Camargue, the beautiful, wild, marshy area between the city and the Mediterranean sea. The material, released by the heat of the sun from seawater, could be called sustainable. Its extraction engages the skills of a local community. You might worry that salt’s well-known habit of dissolving in water could limit its potential as a construction material – might not an inattentive cleaner wash it all away? – but never fear: it has been stabilised with binding agents derived from sunflowers.