PARIS: After a battle involving money, art and politics, the French billionaire François Pinault has been chosen over the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation to turn a much-coveted disused customs house at the entrance to Venice's Grand Canal into a new contemporary art museum. Pinault, 70, France's wealthiest art collector whose business empire includes Christie's, Gucci, Yves Saint Laurent and three chains of department and media stores, has promised to install the bulk of his collection in the 17th-century building at what is known as the Punta della Dogana. The triangular-shaped customs house, which looks out toward the Doge's Palace beside the Piazza San Marco, will be transformed into a museum by the Japanese architect Tadao Ando at an estimated cost of 26 million. The plan is for it to be ready by June 2009, in time for that year's Venice Biennale. The decision to grant Pinault a 30-year concession to the space was announced Thursday by Luigi Bassetto, head of Venice's heritage organization, following a recommendation by a committee of experts. Philip Rylands, director of the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice, said that the terms of the competition were altered during the process, "so the vision for the Punta della Dogana changed from a dynamic center of contemporary art to a static museum of modern art." He added: "We trusted that the city would share our vision of a dynamic museum, but we were mistaken." War crimes tribunal allowed Serbia to censor incriminating documents Britain reverses course on military selling stories to media In France, candidates debate the limits to debate The Guggenheim Foundation, which has operated the Peggy Guggenheim Collection since 1980, first set its eyes on the Punta della Dogana building in the late 1990s, but was reportedly unable to raise the necessary money to transform it. A fierce competition for the space then began after Pinault bought the 18th-century Palazzo Grassi, also on the Grand Canal, in 2005. After the competing proposals were initially considered of equal value, there was even talk of a joint Pinault-Guggenheim project. But any such plan imploded after one of the Guggenheim's backers, Alberto Rigotto of the ABM merchant bank, attacked Pinault as a "wandering merchant" in an interview with Le Monde. After the Palazzo Grassi won what Le Figaro in Paris headlined Friday as "the battle of Venice," Pinault said in a statement that he hoped to work closely with other contemporary art institutions. Jean-Jacques Aillagon, a former French culture minister who heads the Palazzo Grassi, said he expected this would include the Guggenheim Foundation. Rylands welcomed this possibility. "Congratulations to Palazzo Grassi," he said. "They're friends in town and we have worked together in the past and will do so in the future." Elisabetta Povoledo contributed reporting from Milan.