Louvre Pyramid

[Deleted]

Today is the 20th anniversary of the Louvre pyramid, highly controversial at the time and still not universally appreciated. I have always liked it myself.

               

       

Since designing the pyramid, Ieoh Ming Pei has also designed the Bank of China Tower in Hong Kong, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio, the Museum of Modern Art of Luxembourg and the Museum of Islamic Art in Doha, Qatar.

[bixaorellana]

It's really a perfect thing! It is an elegant solution to the problem of the accommodating the vast numbers of visitors to the Louvre. Furthermore, it's a clever nod to the formal tradition of French landscape design, wherein buildings face rather rigid forms created by plantings, with frequently a "pyramid" of water from a fountain as the main focus.

The pictures above are beautiful. Here's another, showing how neatly the pyramid integrates with the Louvre.

[lagatta]

I'm very fond of it. It is a modern insert that really works. I first saw it when it was brand new, and all the aménagement had not been completed. Love the wee pyramid next to the larger one.

In general, I think le Louvre has done an admirable job of improving access (even for disabled people) to a historic structure housing one of the world's top museums.

[komsomol]

The people who criticized it, but who agreed that a new entrance had to be built -- I always wondered what they thought would be a good entrance. I agree that something daring had to be done.