Timeline

Key figures

Origin and history

The Louvre pyramid, commissioned in 1983 by President François Mitterrand, was designed by Sino-American architect Ieoh Ming Pei as part of the Grand Louvre project. This project aimed to transform the palace into a "mass museum" by releasing spaces occupied by the Ministry of Finance. The idea of a pyramid in Napoleon's courtyard dates back to the 19th century, evoked in 1809 to honour Napoleon I or in 1889 for the centenary of the French Revolution.

Inaugurated in two stages (1988 and 1989), the pyramid sparked intense controversy in 1984. Critics, such as historian André Fermigier or journalist Jean Dutord, described it as "zero degree of architecture" or "disneyland" intrusion. The supporters, including the New Observer, defended his modern audacity. The controversy subsided in 1986 after a life-size simulation convincing Jacques Chirac, then Mayor of Paris.

The structure, 21.64 metres high, rests on a square base of 35.42 metres and has 673 glass panels (603 diamond and 70 triangles). Its exceptional transparency, obtained thanks to a sodocalcic glass with low iron content, was a technical feat for the time. The pyramid is surrounded by three miniature replicas and a fifth, inverted, under the Carrousel du Louvre. Its reception hall, originally sized for 5 million visitors, was renovated between 2014 and 2016 to cope with more than 9 million visitors.

The project also incorporated controversial symbols: the number 673 (near 666) fed esoteric theories, while a meridian was drawn in 1997 at the foot of the inverted pyramid. In 2011, new LED lighting reduced energy consumption by 73%. Despite the initial polemics, the pyramid became an emblem of the Louvre, marking a turning point in French museum history.

Future

Although the pyramid aroused a great controversy during the presentation of its project in 1984, it became at the beginning of the 20th century the third most appreciated work of the Louvre after the Mona Lisa and Venus of Milo.

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