Louvre Pyramid

Louvre Pyramid, pyramid that serves as the main entrance to the Louvre Museum in Paris. It was designed by architect I.M. Pei and completed in 1989.

One of Pres. François Mitterrand’s grands projets (“great projects”), the Pyramid was part of a much-needed rationalization of France’s greatest museum. Since the early 19th century, the sprawling Palais du Louvre has housed the extensive highlights of the state collection of antiquities and fine and decorative arts. By the 1980s, the entrance spaces were inadequate for the yearly millions of visitors, and the curatorial facilities were in need of improvement. The design proposed a central underground foyer in the Cour Napoléon—formerly the site of two small parks and a parking lot—to modernize and expand the premises. Digging out the larger courtyard gave a generous foyer, the wings of the museum were united, and space was created for facilities and shops. The appointment of Pei, a Chinese-born American, rather than a French architect was regarded as shocking.

The great glass and steel pyramid over the foyer solves all the problems of a subterranean entrance: it draws visitors in by its striking shape and, with the three smaller flanking pyramids, lights the space below. The pyramids, together with fountains and pools, are unequivocally modern, but they also hold echoes of French garden planning, which relate them to their palatial context. The notable Egyptian collection of the museum makes the pyramid an especially resonant shape.

Initially disliked by many as inappropriately modern, the Pyramid is now widely loved. Inside, the pyramid soars high above to nearly 70 feet (21 meters), and a great slab of perfect concrete stands on the slenderest of stone columns.