Louvre Pyramid

The Louvre Pyramid was built as part of a big project known as the 'Grand Louvre'. This was first proposed in 1981 by the French president François Mitterrand. The aim of this pyramid was to expand and modernize the Louvre museum.

 

Chinese-born American architect Ieoh Ming Pei took this opportunity to modernize the design of the Louvre and came up with this idea of a pyramid. He made the ‘Hall Napoléon’ the entrance of this museum, as in the 1970s the old Louvre Palace struggled with its layout because of the small entrance. The layout was so badly placed that visitors were confused to find the entrance or the exit.

  

       [Ieoh Ming Pei] 

Pei studying carefully the works of André Le Nôtre  (France's great landscape designer) who was inspired by geometric shapes. After that he also looked at Egyptian arts and their highly known pyramids. Clearly he was very interested in the pyramids structure and their stability as he designed the Loure entrance the same way like them.

 [Egyptian art 3200BC, Pyramid]

[France, Louvre museum 1989]

When the design of the project 'Grande Louvre' was done, it became one of Paris's most beloved modern landmarks, although some didn't liked the idea of this stucture at all.

The Louvre Pyramid had became a controversial subject. It was all over france news : ''An American architect was destroying the very heart of Paris''. People were saying that the whole new geometrical pyramid was placed right in front of the historical and classic palace that it's loosing it value.

Paris, Louvre Pyramid, http://www.aviewoncities.com/paris/louvrepyramid.htm, [Accessed on 20/2/14]

History of the Louvre, http://www.louvre.fr/en/history-louvre, [Accessed on 20/2/14]