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Why is a museum inside a palace?
The Louvre’s changing rooms preserve different answers to what a royal building should do.
The Louvre / Your next move
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A fortified beginning
Philippe Auguste, the French king who strengthened medieval Paris, had a fortress built here between 1190 and 1202 to reinforce the city’s western side. The surviving foundations let you read the weight and enclosure of that first purpose.
Rooms for royal life
Later kings turned the site into a residence. In the sixteenth century, François I commissioned the architect Pierre Lescot to rebuild part of the palace; work continued under his successor Henri II. The Salle des Caryatides began as a royal ballroom. Its musicians’ gallery makes sense when you imagine a gathering below.
A palace opened to the public
Henri IV, king of France at the turn of the seventeenth century, had the Grande Galerie built to link the Louvre with the Tuileries palace. In 1793, the Louvre opened as a public museum. A passage created for royal purposes became a place where visitors could encounter art. As you look, notice how each new use has inherited the scale of the old one.