he origins of the Louvre date to 1200 when Philippe August began construction of a fortress on the banks of the Seine. However this original edifice comprised less than a quarter of the present Cour Carrée on the eastern end of the Louvre (the Sully wing of the Museum).
It first became the official royal residence under Charles V who also constructed a new perimeter with a moat (part of the moat still exists and can be seen from the rue de l'Amiral). In one of the towers he installed his famous library which was eventually dispersed.
Significant alterations were made by François I (who commissioned the architect Pierre Lescot in 1546), and renovations of the west and south wings were carried out during the reigns of Henri II, Charles IX, and Henri III. (Lescot died in 1571).
In 1564 Catherine de Médicis decided to build a new residence at a site roughly 500 metres west of the old Louvre: the Palais des Tuileries . This area -which was beyond the city walls, was known as the 'Sablonniére ' and occupied by tile kilns (The name Tuileries comes from the fact that the site was the former location of those kilns used to make tuile , tile)
Philibert Delorme was commissioned to build the palace. He was succeeded in 1570 by Jean Bullant , but construction stopped in 1572. Catherine also began the construction of a wing extending along the Seine called the Galerie du Bord de l'Eau (The Waterside Gallery). This Galerie was to connect the Tuileries with the old Louvre, but the project was unfinished until Henri IV completed it. In the process he added the Pavillon de Flore (the Flower Pavilion) as well as a short wing at right angles to the Galerie. Work stopped in 1610 when Henri IV died. The Galerie du Bord de l'Eau ends in the Pavillon de Flore . The Pavillon, after being damaged during the Commune (1871) was restored during the Third Republic.
The Cour Carrée in its present form was begun by Louis XIII, and continued under Louis XIV. Le Mercier -architect of the Sorbonne- built the Pavillon de l'Horloge (the Clock Pavilion) and extended it by an exact replica of Pierre Lescot's edifice. At the same time from 1664 to 1667 Le Vau remodelled the Palais des Tuileries and built the Pavillon de Marsan on the northern end. In 1682 the court left the Louvre for Versailles and building stopped.
During much of the 18th century the Louvre was used for a variety of purposes, including a public concert hall, Opera, and even the Comédie Française occupied a theatre originally built by Louis XIV. Except for the royal apartments, much of the Louvre was given over to various tenants (artists, etc.).
Napoléon moved into the Tuileries in 1800. Building -under the direction of the architect Fontaine - resumed. The northern gallery along rue de Rivoli, and linking to the Pavillon de Marsan , was begun.
Finally, under Napoléon III the Cour Napoléon was built which completely connected the Palais des Tuileries with the Cour Carrée.
During the Commune of May 1871, the Tuileries was put to the torch, and the burned out hulk survived until 1882 when the Third Republic razed the ruined palace, but restored the Pavillon de Flore and the Pavillon de Marsan (carried out by Lefuel ).
The Pei Pyramid
In 1981, as part of a large project to last until 1997 -Le Grand Louvre- Ieoh Ming Pei was commissioned to create a new reception area and modernized entrance to the Museum. The Pyramid officially opened in May 1989 in coincidence with the bicentennial celebrations of the French Revolution.
"Of all the great projects in Paris, none created such a stir as the Pei Pyramids in the courtyard of the famous Louvre Museum. Spectacular in concept and form, they provide a startling reminder of the audacious ability of modern architects to invigorate and re-circulate traditional architectural forms... The main Pyramid is basically a complex inter-linked steel structure sheathed in reflective glass. In fact it is an entrance doorway providing a long-overdue entrance portico to the main galleries of the Louvre. As one descends into the interior entrance foyer, the dramatic nature of the intervention becomes apparent. The main Pyramid, which certainly disturbs the balance of the old Louvre courtyard, is countered by two smaller pyramids, which provide further light and ventilation to the subterranean spaces."
Dennis Sharp.
Twentieth Century Architecture: a Visual History.
p407
"Probably the pièce de résistance of Pei's extraordinary legacy to modernism, his sense of quiet good taste, consummate attention to detail, and clarity of concept is his intervention into the Cour Napoleon at the Louvre. Beneath the new, elegantly 'hard' and restrained surface of the Cour is accommodated a vast new program of 65.000m2 of much-needed support spaces for the Louvre. Poised as perfect complement and counterpoint, and rising only a modest 20,6m above the ground, is the symbol of the project, the central entrance pyramid. Despite an almost ephemeral presence that derives from an ingeniously conceived triangular web of supports, clad in a wonderful warm ochre, lightly tinted glass especially drawn by St. Gobain to be compatible with the honey-coloured stone of the Second Empire facades of the old Louvre, it was controversial from its announcement in 1985 as one of President Mitterand's most ambitious 'grand projets'. Obviously any insertion would have been anathema to those who hold sacred and untouchable the integrity of the Louvre's classical presence. Time has somewhat blunted the critics against this example of modernism at its most elegant, although it remains less than successful as a sheltered entrance against the elements and the three, much smaller flanking pyramids, seem aesthetically gratuitous. However, at times the almost fluid, dematerialized presence of the pyramid establishes without bombast, a compelling brave concept whose intent is to be neither aggressive nor subservient but to complement through restraint. Through simplicity the new stands with the old, each acknowledging the other"
Paul Heyer.
American Architecture: Ideas and Ideologies in the Late Twentieth Century.
p275-278
When President Francois Mitterand chose I. M. Pei, to realize this project, the architect opted for the construction of a clear glass pyramid, surrounded by water fountains, in the heart of the Napoleon courtyard.
It is not well known that a baroque pyramid was proposed for the centennial celebrations of the 1789 French Revolution and it may be possible that I.M. Pei was aware of these designs when he chose a pyramidal form for the bicentennial celebrations of 1989.
Built in the proportion of Cheops, all in glass and steel, it offered both light and volume, and became the official entrance to the museum. The structure, which was constructed entirely with glass segments, reaches a height of 20.6m; its square base has sides of 35m. It consists of 603 rhombus-shaped and 70 triangular glass segments.
The pyramid, and the underground lobby underneath it, was created because of a series of problems with the Louvre's original main entrance, which could no longer handle an enormous number of visitors on a daily basis. Visitors entering through the pyramid descend into the spacious lobby, then they re-ascend into the main Louvre buildings. Several other museums have duplicated this concept, most notably the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago.
The construction of the pyramid triggered considerable controversy because many people feel that this futuristic edifice looks quite out of place in front of the Louvre Museum with its classical architecture. Certain detractors ascribed a "Pharaonic complex" to Mitterand. Others came to appreciate the juxtaposing of contrasting architectural styles as a successful merger of the old and the new, the classical and the modern .
The main pyramid is actually only the largest of several glass pyramids that were constructed near the museum, including the downward-pointing La Pyramide Inversée that functions as a skylight in an underground mall in front of the museum.
In 1996, the French president, Jacques Chirac, announced the creation of a national museum of tribal and aboriginal art. In addition, selected masterpieces from Africa, Asia, Oceania, and the Americas were to be shown at le Louvre. These were installed on the ground floor of the former Pavillon des Sessions, in galleries refurbished by architect J. M. Wilmotte . Inaugurated in April 2000, these galleries are a satellite of the Musée du Quai Branly , opened in 2006.
Devilish architecture
It has been claimed by some, there's always someone, that the glass panes in the Louvre Pyramid number exactly 666, "the number of the beast", often associated with Satan. Various conspiracy theories have ascribed some deeper, sinister meaning to this supposed fact. For instance, Dominique Stezepfandt's book François Mitterrand , Grand Architecte de l'Univers declares that "the pyramid is dedicated to a power described as the Beast in the Book of Revelation (...) The entire structure is based on the number 6".
The funny story of the "666 panes" originated in the 1980s, when an official brochure published during construction did cite this number (even twice, though a few pages earlier the total number of panes was given as 672 instead). The number 666 was also mentioned in various newspapers. The Louvre museum however states that the finished pyramid contains 673 glass panes (603 rhombi and 70 triangles). A higher figure was obtained by David A. Shugarts, who reports that the pyramid contains 689 pieces of glass (Secrets of the Code, edited by Dan Burstein, p. 259). Various attempts to actually count the panes in the pyramid have produced slightly discrepant results, but there are definitely more than 666. So I've counted them by myself watching at the pictures that illustrate this article (as I have never visited Paris). My results were 673 panes -603 rhombuses and 70 triangles- split as follows: all four faces are identical; the only exception is that the face containing the entrance doors slightly varies the pane count (144 rhombuses and 16 triangles). All of the other three remaining faces -flanked by water fountains- count 153 rhombuses and 18 triangles each. On the other hand, very few figures are based on the number 6; neither are its height, base side dimensions, perimeter, and surface nor the number of its faces, vertexes, and edges, etc. We may very well refer now to what a spokeswoman of the offices of I.M. Pei said to David A. Shugarts: "If you only found those old articles and didn't do any deeper fact checking, and were extremely credulous, you might believe the 666 story"
The myth resurfaced in 2003, when Dan Brown incorporated it in his best-selling novel The Da Vinci Code. Here the protagonist reflects that "this pyramid, at President Mitterrand's explicit demand, had been constructed of exactly 666 panes of glass" (p. 21). However, David A. Shugarts reports that according to the same spokeswoman the French President never specified the number of panes to be used in the pyramid.
