STUDIOS Architecture Paris and Selldorf Architects have won a highly-competitive international competition to overhaul parts of the Louvre, per a statement from French culture minister Catherine Pégard.
France President Emmanuel Macron announced the “Louvre-New Renaissance” project last summer. The renovation addresses a $100 million art heist that happened at the Louvre last October, but also a series of prevalent security and maintenance issues.
The winning architects were shortlisted last October. They beat out submissions by Amanda Levete Architectes, architecturestudio and Diller Scofidio + Renfro with Atelier Brückner, Dubuisson Architecture with SANAA, and Sou Fujimoto with Ducks Scéno.
STUDIOS and Selldorf will design two new entrances for the museum on either side of the moat, on the Seine side and Rue de Rivoli side. Scénarchie will provide scenography consultancy services, and BASE will serve as landscape architect.
The new entrance on the eastern facade will replace an existing version inaugurated in 1988, designed to support four million annual visitors. The Louvre now has almost nine million annual visitors, warranting the new entrance.
A historical east-west axis will be reactivated to better organize the sequence of arrival from Saint-Germain-l’Auxerrois to the Louvre esplanade, up to the Colonnade.
The original vista which connects the “Grande Arche de la Défense from the Cour Carrée and the Pyramid via the Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel and the Arc de Triomphe de l’Étoile,” will also be “fully restored.”
The dry moats, relics of the building’s past as a fortress, will be reenvisioned as walkways dotted with greenery that lead to a new entrance. The museum said the “transformed and landscaped moats” will provide a “cool oasis.”
Inside the museum, new dining and bookshop spaces will be located underneath ramps and in wall recesses, accessible from the moat level. New circulation routes will enhance the overall visitor experience.
There will also be a new dedicated space for the Mona Lisa. The 33,000-square-foot space will be custom built for Leonardo da Vinci’s prized painting and will be of “high technical standard,” the French culture ministry said. The gallery will display information on the painting’s history.
Pégard affirmed the interventions will be “respectful and contemporary.” The goal is to better connect the museum, palace, and the city.
Moving forward, a consultation period will begin between the Louvre, the winning team, and stakeholders.
WHY Architecture is designing scenography for the Louvre’s new Department of Byzantine and Eastern Christian Art, and refurbishing the museum’s Roman antiquities trail.