Paris - Louvre Pyramide - 1er

Plate XIV - The Pyramide from Cour Caree ...

The Cour Carée is not the most attractive part of the Louvre precinct. In fact I can think of only one reason to visit here and that is to orientate oneself before entering the buildings and so gain an understanding of the history of the Louvre’s plan, and then to exit. Although the complex of the Grand Louvre appears at first to have been architecturally co-ordinated in the French Renaissance manner, the many differently styled buildings were actually constructed over a period of 480 years – from the early sixteenth century reign of Francis I up to the presidency of Francois Mitterand who commissioned Ieoh Ming Pei to develop the Grand Louvre designs. The Mediaeval origins of the Louvre are no longer visible above ground, but still remain in open excavated exhibitions. I daresay it is not finished yet. Rumours abound that there is a plan, growing in popularity amongst the French, to reconstruct the Tuileries Palace within the Grand Louvre surrounds, and if progressed it will certainly take the exercise at least well into this 21st century. 

The major wings of the museum show a definite rivalry between Baroque and Classicism. Neither wins, and in my mind they live harmoniously side-by-side.

For his work on the entrance to the Louvre, Pei was awarded France’s Legion d’Honeur in 1993. It is interesting to learn of the many obstacles he was to overcome in his designs, and the unexpected discovery of those large subterranean relics of the mediaeval Louvre, now also presented to visitors to the museum.

This view of his Grand Pyramid is a bonus for visiting the Cour Carée. Perhaps that makes it two reasons to go there.