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

I haven't been near the Louvre in many years and have never seen the infamous pyramid. I think that if I were to visit Paris again, I would try to avoid the pyramid. It has quite an important role in The DaVinci Code, however!

Originally I would have pictured some lil' dollop of architecture like this as an entry pavilion -



but I hate bad replicas, and mediocre sort-of-likes, and can see doing something like the pyramid, and am now used to it, in photos at least. The DVCode thing has exacerbated the problem, according to the article.

I don't really mind the Pyramid either. As the article hints at, the excessive crowding in the atrium likely has less to do with the Pyramid than with the ridiculous shopping area inside.

Shapeless, one would guess an alternate shopping center could be arranged...

I've been looking for a plan view of the site online, with the fuzzy idea of somehow enclosing the pyramid space with a quite far away wall-to-match the original Louvre. But I anticipated that that is a stupid idea almost before I thought it, even if the main building floats in a much bigger space (which I don't know).

I wonder if they really want Pei to do something entirely different... the pyramid does have a certain ephemeral aspect.

It's beautiful. Standing under it with my daughter, she signed in admiration, "It's all physics."

Signed?

I've been there, really liked it. More than I expected to. (I thought it would be incongruous, jarring, but in context -- I've never seen a picture that did it justice -- it works.)

Sozobe -- Meant "sighed," not signed. Sometimes, typing results in automatic writing, in this case, "gn" just jumped in to where "gh" should have been.

Ah, I see. Wondered if you meant sign language.

Let's hope Plainoldme didn't mean that her daughter graffiti'd the museum.

I'm sort of an old fashioned modernist, so I actually prefer the cerebral look of the pyramid to the florid ornaments of the old palace. It's not like Paris is lacking in rococo splendor anyway. The pyramid goes well with the pools and fountains too... as Sozobe said, it's all about context.

I'm impressed that they're calling Pei back to handle it the difficulty - museums don't always do that. For example, when they needed an addition to the High Museum in Atlanta they didn't call Richard Meier back to do it.

Actually, I could have meant sign language as my daughter is proficient in it, but, I'm not.

I was at the Louvre last May and I must disagree with Soz. The pyramid-atrium were aesthetically very incongruous. Removal of the shopping areas might make it a bit less uncomfortable, but not much.
The problem is the tourist industry. Tours stream (no, they cram their ways) through all the great venues of Europe.
Something has to be done. I don't know what, but it can't remain like it is. Florence, San Marcos Island of Venice, the Versailles, etc. all spoiled by crowds pushing through every place. While looking up that the Sistine Chapel, I laughed to realize that I was forced to move forward while looking up.