Sometimes it also happens to LVMH that a project fails to come to fruition. The luxury giant changes its mind and renounces to build its research centre dedicated to “durable and digital luxury” on a plot of land in Saclay, related to the campus of the Institut Polytechnique in Paris. LVMH boss Bernard Arnault, however, says he has already found another area that better meets the company’s needs. The aim is to construct a 22,000 square metre building to house 300 researchers for over 100 million euros of investment. Put like that, it sounds like a trivial, if unusual, backtrack by LVMH. In reality, it hides something else.
LVMH changes its mind
Despite the fact that LVMH had received the approval from the Institut Polytechnique last November, the group has backed down. In other words, LVMH Gaia, a research and innovation centre for sustainable luxury, will not be based in the Innovation Park of the Institut Polytechnique as previously planned (pictured). Incidentally, the school had already given the go-ahead for this construction, despite opposition from many students.
This institute, in fact, depends on the French Ministry of Defence and has no connection with a luxury group. The highly organised opposition (as you can find out by clicking here), however, according to LVMH is not the reason for its turnaround and “has nothing to do,” reads an LVMH note, “with the reluctance of a few students”. The French luxury giant specifies that it will “continue the research partnership” worth 2 million euros a year for five years with the Polytechnique’s engineering faculty.
A new solution
Contacted by Le Figaro Étudiant, LVMH explains that it has “succeeded in identifying another plot of land that better corresponds to the architectural, scientific and environmental dimensions of the project”. Thus, the previous land is no longer the “ideal site” described by LVMH in July 2021.
Read also:
