The Louvre Pyramid

At the main courtyard (Cour Napoléon) of the Louvre Palace (Palais du Louvre) is the Louvre Pyramid (Pyramide du Louvre), a large, glass and metal pyramid that serves as the main entrance to the Louvre Museum. Designed by the late Chinese-American architect I. M. Pei (Ieoh Ming Pei), the founder of Pei Cobb Freed & Partners known for his stellar work at the National Gallery in Washington as well as the Fine Arts Museum in Boston.

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L-R; Jandy, Grace, Cheska, Kyle and Manny

It was commissioned in 1984 by the, François Mitterrand, President of France, and completed on March  29, 1989 (symbolically, the bicentenary year of the French Revolution).

Cheska and Kyle

I.M. Pei’s most famous structure, this controversial structure, now an iconic symbol for the largest museum in the world,  has become, together with the Arc de Triumphe and the equally controversial Eiffel Tower, a landmark of the city of Paris.

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One of the three smaller pyramids

Here are some interesting trivia regarding the Louvre Pyramid:

• There are actually five pyramids throughout the museum. The Louvre Pyramid is surrounded by three smaller pyramids, positioned to create light shafts for access to the museum’s collections, plus the Pyramide Inversée (Inverted Pyramid), an upside-down and smaller version of the Louvre Pyramid. The latter is a skylight in the Carrousel du Louvre shopping mall in front of the Louvre Museum.
• The large pyramid has the exact same proportions as the Great Pyramid of Giza.
• The choice of the pyramid figure serves as a reminder of the importance of the Egyptian antiquities collection inside the museum.
• The Louvre Pyramid was featured near the beginning the 2006 film The Da Vinci Code. Here, Robert Langdon, the main character, meets French Police Captain Bezu Fache in front of the Louvre Pyramid. Today, the sites at the Louvre which are portrayed in the film are the subject of a special visitor trail which enters through the Pyramid and concludes at the Inverted Pyramid.
• Because of a series of problems with the Louvre’s original main entrance (it could no longer handle, on an everyday basis, the enormous number of visitors, then at 5 million visitors a year), the Louvre Pyramid was created so that visitors entering through the pyramid first descend into the spacious, 60,386 sq. m. (650,000 sq. ft.) underground lobby before ascend into the museum’s three pavilions — Denon, Richelieu and Sully.  However, in 2014, the Louvre’s attendance had doubled and the pyramid proved inadequate, necessitating a thorough redesign of the layout of the foyer area in the Cour Napoleon, including better access to the pyramid and the Passage Richelieu, between 2014 and 2017.
• As soon as the Louvre Pyramid project, costing 5 billion euros, was announced, it triggered many years of strong and lively aesthetic and political debate. Accused of disfiguring the architecture, some questioned what direction the museum was headed. They criticized the Modernist style of the edifice being inconsistent with the majestic, old and classic French Renaissance architectural style and history of the Louvre; the pyramid being an unsuitable and anachronistic intrusion of an ancient Egyptian symbol of death in the middle of Paris; the hugely unpopular project being an immodest, pretentious, megalomaniacal folly imposed by then-President François Mitterrand (political critics referred to the structure as “Pharaoh Francois’ Pyramid”); and that Chinese-American architect I.M. Pei being insufficiently French to be entrusted with the task of updating the treasured Parisian landmark. Even today, many people still feel that the harsh modernism of the edifice is out of place.
• M. Pei also included large glass pyramid concept on the roofs of the IBM Somers Office Complex(Westchester County, New York, 1989, the same year the Louvre Pyramid opened) and at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (1995, Cleveland, Ohio).
• Several other museums have also duplicated the pyramid concept, most notably the Museum of Science and Industry(Chicago, Illinois) and the Dolphin Centre (opened April 1982, by Prince Richard, Duke of Gloucester).
• It has been claimed by some that the glass panes in the Louvre Pyramid number exactly 666, “the number of the beast” often associated with Satan and the beast in the Apocalypse. Dominique Stezepfandt’s book François Mitterrand, Grand Architecte de l’Universalso 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 story of the 666 panes originated in the 1980s, when the number 666 was mentioned in various newspapers as well as the official brochure published during construction (even twice, though, in a few pages earlier, the total number of panes was given as 672 instead). In 2003, the myth resurfaced when Dan Brown incorporated it in his best-selling novel The Da Vinci Code.  In the book, the protagonist reflects that “this pyramid, at President Mitterrand’s explicit demand, had been constructed of exactly 666 panes of glass.”  However, the Louvre museum states that the finished pyramid contains 673 glass panes (603 rhombi and 70 triangles). David A. Shugarts obtained a higher figure from Pei’s offices, reporting that the pyramid contains 689 pieces of glass.
• During the design phase, there was a proposal that the design include a spire on the pyramid to simplify window washing. However, Pei objected and this proposal was eliminated.
• Just in case any glass pieces ever break, laminated glass manufacturer Saint-Gobain made enough to build two pyramids. However, after more than 30 years, no repairs have yet been needed.
• In the early days, mountaineers were actually hired to scale the Pyramid and clean the glass, a monumental task. However, in the 1990s, a robot was designed to do the job. Then, in 2002, Advanced Robotic Vehicles, a Seattle company, developed a “double breadboxed-sized robot” which boasts a squeegee and rotating brush. When secured to the glass via suction cups, it is maneuvered by remote control to climb the Pyramid on tracks. However, human ropers are still used to repair the joints and descale the glass from time to time.
• Although the Pyramid was constructed to accommodate a visitor entrance, it’s not the only way to get into the Louvre. Visitors, with single or group tickets, can enter through the Passage Richelieu, which is just off the Rue de Rivoli across from the Palais Royal-Musée du Louvre metro station. You can also enter via the Carrousel du Louvre, an underground shopping and dining space opened in 1993 and the location of the suspended Inverted Pyramid. Whichever entrance you choose, they all converge in the lobby beneath the Louvre Pyramid.

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The underground lobby

Constructed entirely with 21.5 mm. (0.8-in.) thick, extra clear “Diamond Glass” laminated glass segments, totaling 1,800 sq. m. (19,375 sq. ft.) in area, and 6,000 metal poles, the structure, supported by 95 tons of steel and 105 tons of aluminum, is 21.6 m. (71 ft.) high and its square base has sides of 34 m. (112 ft.) and a base surface area of 1,000 sq. m. (11,000 sq ft.).

Spiral stair

Consisting of 603 rhombus-shaped and 70 triangular glass segments, elementary arithmetic allows for easy counting of the panes.  Each of the three sides of the pyramid without an entrance has 18 triangular panes and 17 rows of rhombic ones arranged in a triangle, thus giving rhombic panes (171 panes total).

The side with the entrance has 11 panes fewer (9 rhombic, 2 triangular), so the whole pyramid consists of rhombi and triangles, 673 panes total.

The pyramid structure was engineered by Nicolet Chartrand Knoll Ltd. of Montreal (Pyramid Structure/Design Consultant) and Rice Francis Ritchie of Paris (Pyramid Structure/Construction Phase).

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Louvre Museum: 75001 Paris, France.  Tel: +33 1 40 20 50 50. Open daily, except Tuesdays and holidays, 9 AM- 6 PM (until 10 PM on Wednesday and Friday evenings).

The Louvre has three entrances: the main entrance at the pyramid, an entrance from the Carrousel du Louvre underground shopping mall, and an entrance at the Porte des Lions (near the western end of the Denon wing).

Admission is free, from October to March, on the first Sunday of every month. Still and video photography is permitted for private, noncommercial use only in the galleries housing the permanent collection. The use of flash or other means of artificial lighting is prohibited. Photography and filming are not permitted in the temporary exhibition galleries. 

How To Get There: the Louvre can be reached via Metro lines 1 and 7, station Palais Royal – Musée du Louvre Métro or the Louvre-Rivoli stations. By bus, take No. 21, 24, 27, 39, 48, 68, 69, 72, 81, 95 as well as the touristic Paris l’Open Tour. By car, there is an underground parking reachable by Avenue du Général Lemonier, every day from 7 AM – 11 PM.