Musee du louvre

M u s e e d u l o u v r

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Musee du louvre ( the louvre museum )

Located in Paris, France. one of the biggest museums in the world.

the louvre contains:

Tuileries

Napoleon courTriumph arc

Le seine

History of the LouvreFrom Château to Museum

The louvre originally was built to be a fortress in the late 12th century under Phillip II. (in the basement of the museum the remnants are visible).

round bastions at each corner, and at the center of the north and west walls. Defensive

towers flanked narrow gates in the south and east walls. At the center of this complex stood the massive keep, the Grosse Tour (fifteen meters in diameter and thirty meters high). Two inner buildings abutted the outer walls on the west and south sides.

History of the Louvre

The Salle Basse (Lower Hall) is all that remains today of the Louvre’s medieval interior. Its original function is unknown. The vaulted ceiling (now destroyed) rested on two columns at the center of the hall and on supporting walls.

1230 A.D

further defenses were established for the louvre fortress due to the hundred years’ war. The new defenses encompassed

the neighborhoods on the right bank of the Seine. Enclosed within the expanding city, the Louvre lost its defensive function.

History of the Louvre1358 A.D

The fortress began transforming into a royal residence by Raymond du Temple, architect to Charles V, adding paintings of marvelous images and decorated rooftops, carved windows. and A majestic spiral staircase, the “grande vis,”.


Transformation into a palace


The tuileries is a palace and royal residence built for Catherine de Medicis in 1564 and burned down in 1871; all that remains today are the formal gardens

The gardens are located in front of the Louvre Museum Created by Catherine de Medicis as the garden of

the Tuileries.it was eventually opened from private to public in 1667, and became a public park after the French

Revolution.


François I ordered the construction of new buildings. The medieval west wing was demolished and replaced with Renaissance-style buildings designed by Pierre Lescot and decorated by Jean Goujon.

The Pavillon du Roi (King’s Pavilion) was built at the junction of the new buildings and housed the king’s private apartments on the first floor. The new, uniform facades established the Parisian Renaissance style.

Charles IX began building the ground floor of the Petite Galerie, a small wing intended to serve as a starting point for a long corridor connecting the Louvre to the Tuileries along the banks of the Seine.



Louis XIV invited the Italian sculptor and architect Bernini to work on the eastern wing of the Cour Carrée, the planned site of a grandiose new entrance to the royal residence.

History of the LouvreThrough 16th and 17th century

The architecture styles moved from Italy to France through architects , paintings and antique marble statues


Percier and Fontaine built a small triumphal arch aligned with the Pavillon de l’Horloge and the central pavilion of the Tuileries. Inaugurated, it was decorated with Parisian Renaissance reliefs and statues by Denon celebrating French military victories.

On the top, Denon installed the four celebrated antique bronze horses from the facade of Saint Mark's Basilica in Venice.

Saint mark’s basilica

On September 26, 1981, President François Mitterrand announced a plan to restore the Louvre palace in its entirety to its function as a museum.


The glass Pyramid built by arch. Ieoh Ming Pei was inaugurated. Rising from the center of the Cour Napoléon, it is the focal point of the museum's main axes of circulation and also serves as an entrance to the large reception hall beneath.


The renovated Richelieu wing was opened, representing the biggest single expansion in the museum's history. Glazed roofs over three inner courtyards created new spaces for the display of monumental sculpture.


Pyramids of the louvre

The entrance of the louvre is through a pyramid. It is positioned on the central axe of the circulation and it’s is the focal point of the complex.

The addition of the modern glass steel pyramid structure as an entrance language

to the lower levels of the museum.


Pei wanted the main pyramid to be the new entrance to the Louvre, so that people had to wait on the Napoleon court to enter the museum. But this proved not enough to manage the thousands of people arriving every day. Soon predominance was given to the underground entrance, be it from the tube line of from the parking lot. Both coincide precisely at the inverted pyramid, so that it now becomes the first glass feature to be discovered by visitors.


Deference between the entrance pyramid and the inverted:

‽ Size: The main pyramid has a square base of 35.4m and a height of 21.6m, while the inverted one has a square base of 15.5m and a height of just 7m.

‽ Wind Load: The main one has to withstand strong wind loads that don't exist in the case of the inverted pyramid.

‽ evolution: the engineers who designed the main pyramid remained under the old paradigm. the engineers that were given responsibility to design the inverted one were pioneers of the new paradigm of glass as a structural element.

The louvre sheltering:The louvre design has two types of sheltering domes and pitched roof:

The dome are renaissance style it shelters a rectangle oval shape is used

Louvre interior design:

Documents

Musee du louvre