The Pyramid and the palace

Look at a glass panel and find the façade visible behind it. The structure lets the palace remain part of the view. Then notice the entrance. Visitors descend beneath the courtyard to a reception space that distributes them towards the museum’s wings. I. M. Pei, an architect born in China who developed his career in the United States, designed the Pyramid as part of the Grand Louvre project. François Mitterrand, France’s president, had initiated the museum’s transformation. The entrance opened in 1989. It received and oriented a growing public within a very large building. Shapes repeat before you. The faces are triangles, the base is square and the lines meet at the top. The Pyramid is 21 metres high and its base measures 35 metres on each side. People walking around it help you compare that scale with a person’s height. Its transparency required exceptionally clear glass. Pei wanted the historic façades to remain visible from inside and outside the structure. The entrance solution also brought light into the spaces below. What we see in the courtyard is connected with what needed to work beneath our feet. Move a few steps within the open area and compare glass and stone. From one position they overlap, while from another they separate. This entrance added a modern construction to a palace that had changed many times already. You can recognise its whole shape without descending into the museum.