The Louvre, The Pyramid, The People... now what?

image from bluedanubeholidays.com



The Louvre calls on Pei again
(http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2089-2300467.html)



part of the article here -

The Sunday Times August 06, 2006

Louvre forced to rethink its glass pyramid
John Follain, Paris

WHEN the late François Mitterrand commissioned an enormous glass pyramid in the heart of the Louvre in 1989, critics slammed the new entrance as a ghoulish eyesore and the Socialist president as a would-be pharaoh "wanting to breathe the scent of immortality". An unrepentant Mitterrand called it one of the proudest achievements of his 14-year rule.
Seventeen years on, the pyramid is again causing aggravation. Its underground atrium can no longer cope with a record 7.5m visitors a year and the museum has been forced to recall its American architect, Ieoh Ming Pei, for a drastic rethink.

Even the 89-year-old Pei admits his most controversial creation is in bad form. "I was surprised to find that it is all beginning to look like an airport, with ropes for people to line up to get a ticket and then again to get information," he said this weekend after a recent visit. "People get jostled about. It's not a pleasant place."

The pyramid is a victim of its own success, and of the Louvre's. Initially designed to welcome some 4m visitors a year, it was built as part of the so-called "Grand Louvre" project that doubled exhibition space by opening the northern wing of the former royal palace and created an underground shopping centre.

By the late 1990s the museum was drawing 5m visitors. The bestselling thriller The Da Vinci Code and the subsequent film starring Tom Hanks have made the museum even more popular as visitors seek out the Grand Gallery where the fictional curator is shot dead in the book's opening scene.

Surveys show the pyramid itself is the third most popular work in the Louvre ?- behind the Mona Lisa and the Venus de Milo statue ?- far ahead of the museum's 300,000 other works of art spanning 9,000 years of civilisation and including 52 works by Rubens and 12 Rembrandts. Two-thirds of visitors insist on entering through the pyramid, shunning two less-crowded entrances.

They face long queues in the main courtyard to get into the pyramid, before queueing again in the atrium below for tickets, at the cloakrooms and finally for entry to the main collections. In the summer, the pyramid's glass panes ensure the sun beats down relentlessly.

The chaos can only get worse, with the number of visitors forecast to jump to 9m after 2010 as tourists from China, India and eastern Europe increasingly head for Paris.
end/quote


Interesting problem, elaborated on more in the rest of the article.

I've not been to Paris, schniff, but have long been interested in it. I remember being a little startled by the pyramid in the first place. Now it seems very cool to me. Too bad most people won't use other Louvre entrances.

Have you been through the pyramid? What do you think? How would you solve this?