Editor-in-Chief's Letter

Fondation Louis Vuitton Business beyond the art Over the last twenty years, a handful of the world's richest people have quietly built their own museums instead of giving money to someone else's. It looks like philanthropy. It functions like something else entirely — a tax structure, a marketing tool, a way to raise the value of art they still own, and a door that only opens for the people they choose to let in. How It's Built There are two ways this gets built. In Europe, the model is a lease. A city owns a beautiful old building, which it can't afford to restore, so a billionaire pays for the restoration in exchange for a long-term lease and full say over what gets shown inside.  Pinault did this with the Bourse de Commerce in Paris. Arnault did the same with the Fondation Louis Vuitton, built on city parkland under a similar arrangement. In both cases, the building eventually goes back to the city, but not for decades — long enough for the founder to run it as their own institution for most of their lifetime. In the Gulf, the model is different: there's no old building to inherit, so private money builds the museum from scratch. Dubai's new Museum of Art is being built this way, funded by a private…