ARCHITECTURE7 min read
The Pyramid
How a glass triangle became the most controversial — and beloved — building in Paris.
In 1983, François Mitterrand commissioned a Chinese-American architect to redesign the entrance to the greatest palace in Europe. The French were furious. Forty years later, the Pyramid is as synonymous with Paris as the Eiffel Tower. Gerald stands beneath it and considers the audacity.
A President's Gamble
The Louvre in 1981 was a mess. The entrance was through a side door. The signage was non-existent. The north wing was still occupied by the French Ministry of Finance. When François Mitterrand launched his Grands Travaux — his programme of monumental public architecture — the Louvre was the centrepiece. The question was what to do with it.
I.M. Pei, the architect Mitterrand chose without a competition, without a shortlist, without asking anyone's opinion, proposed a glass pyramid in the centre of the Cour Napoléon. The reaction was immediate and volcanic. Le Figaro called it a 'gigantic, dark diamond.' Architects signed petitions. The press published mock-ups showing the pyramid dwarfing the palace. None of them were accurate. Pei's pyramid stands 21.6 metres tall — barely a quarter of the height of the palace's roofline.
"They showed the pyramid as if it were the size of Giza. It was propaganda, not architecture criticism."
What Pei Actually Built
The pyramid is made of 673 rhombus-shaped and 118 triangular glass panes. Pei insisted on a specific type of ultra-clear glass — low in iron, which gives ordinary glass its greenish tint — so that the palace facades would be visible through it from both inside and out. The result is a structure that is almost invisible in certain lights and blazingly present in others.
Below the pyramid is the Hall Napoléon, a vast underground lobby that solved the Louvre's real problem: how to distribute 9 million visitors a year into three wings without creating a stampede. The pyramid is not decoration. It is infrastructure, brilliantly disguised as art.
★★★★★Essential
The Inverted Pyramid
Fewer people know about the inverted pyramid — La Pyramide Inversée — in the Carrousel du Louvre shopping mall beneath the Tuileries. It points downward from the ceiling, its tip almost touching a small stone pyramid on the floor. Conspiracy theorists have had a field day with it. Dan Brown made it the climax of The Da Vinci Code. The reality is more prosaic: it is a skylight, designed to bring natural light into the underground mall. But it is extraordinary to stand beneath it and look up through the glass into the sky above the Cour Napoléon.
How to See It
The pyramid is best seen at three moments: at dawn, when the glass catches the first light and the courtyard is empty; at dusk, when the interior illumination makes it glow like a lantern against the darkening stone; and at night, when the whole Cour Napoléon is lit and the pyramid becomes something genuinely otherworldly.
If you are visiting the museum, enter through the pyramid. Not through the Porte des Lions, not through the Richelieu passage from the Rue de Rivoli. Through the pyramid. Stand in the Hall Napoléon and look up. Then go and see some art.
Just Gerald Says
AddressCour Napoléon, Musée du Louvre, 75001 Paris
Best time to visitDawn or dusk for the light
Inverted pyramidCarrousel du Louvre, 99 Rue de Rivoli
ArchitectI.M. Pei, completed 1989
The Verdict
The most important building in Paris since Haussmann. The controversy was the point — it proved the palace was still alive.
