Aerial view of the Louvre
Palace and the Jardin des Tuileries
The "Grand
Louvre" is a part of the "Grand Travaux" or Major Works defined
by the President of the Republic François Mitterrand, which also includes
the new Bibliothèque Nationale de France, the Opéra Bastille and
the Grande Arche de la Défense.
In fact it constituted the realisation of an earlier project, which involved devoting the entire Palace to the function of a museum, whilst modernising and improving the presentation of the collections.
Covering an area of some 40 hectares right in the heart of Paris, on the right bank of the Seine, the Louvre offers almost 60,000 m2 of exhibition rooms dedicated to preserving items representing 11 millennia of civilisation and culture. The "Grand Louvre" is also a cultural unit which has a didactic role towards the public, a role which it fulfils through lectures, audiovisual and interactive productions and very many printed publications which are available in the exhibition rooms or at the bookshop under the pyramid.
The Project
The Pyramid
Richelieu Wing
The End of the Project
