Aesthetic vindication can take decades to arrive, but last week in Paris my original judgement of the Louvre’s (in)famous glass pyramid was fully vindicated by French officials.
In 1989 President Mitterrand plonked it in the courtyard as a radical new entrance to the Louvre. It took four years to build and cost about $1.25b in today’s money. Visitors had to file into this ugly, intrusive, impractical structure to access France’s greatest art collection. Four million visitors a year ran this obstacle course, queuing around the courtyard.
I was living in Paris at the time and forming opinions about the radical intrusions of so-called modernism into the fabric of it’s millennial and multi-layered architecture. The intended contrast of a tacky transparent pyramid with such historic surrounding buildings of every architectural lineage was too shocking.
A couple of decades previously President Pompidou had set the tone with rampant modernist constructions along the Seine in the 15th arrondissement, and a road built right on the river’s edge on the other side. Great for movie car chase scenes with a scenic backdrop, but totally alienating river access for pedestrians. More decades were needed to unwind that abomination, and Paris plage is now like a tiny corner of Bondi Beach without the ocean.
French presidents have an autocratic penchant for taking ownership of Paris’s big public buildings or at least metaphorically putting their fingerprints all over them, and providing mega public funds to fulfil their grandiose visions.
Today, those Louvre visitor numbers have more than doubled to 8.7m and forecast to reach 12m. They’re having trouble getting a selfie with Mona Lisa! So President Macron is trying for a stake in architectural posterity by announcing the Louvre New Renaissance project with a construction budget of $1.4b for a new ML room wing and entrance on the Seine side.
The culture minister of course talks about water leaks, temperature variations and other issues endangering the artworks to justify the huge expenditure. Down Under we don’t worry about leaking roofs – a couple of years ago in the National Gallery in Canberra they literally had buckets out in the room near Blue Poles
Big bucks and buckets aside, let’s get back to vindication. The Louvre director Laurence des Cars (le car is French for bus, so Laurence of the Buses?) explained that the glass pyramid entrance now appears outdated; isn’t properly insulated from heat and cold (could be the glass?); tends to amplify noise; and makes the space uncomfortable for the public and staff.
If they’d asked for my opinion back in ’89, now I would just say I told ya so! The tacky pyramid was then screaming ‘already outdated’. Maybe they could transport it to a corner of the Versailles gardens, and use it for the cactus displays or some such.
Now don’t get me started on the ridiculous Pompidou Centre. Apart from its outrageously intrusive and insulting design, they didn’t even build it properly: completed in 1977, it barely lasted twenty years before closing for renovations in 1996 for 27 months, took four years to finish, and now it will close for five more years for the latest round of renovations. Mon dieu!
Just to finish on a positive note though, I’m generally admirative of France’s preservation and restoration investments in it’s incredibly rich architectural heritage across the country. From afar, Notre Dame de Paris has brushed up really well.
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