ARCHITECTURE
PYRAMID IN PARIS
2/27/84

Causing a furor in Paris is a plan by U.S. architect I.M. Pei to build a 66-ft.-high glass pyramid smack in the center of one of the sacred precincts of French culture: the courtyard of the venerable Louvre Museum. President François Mitterrand selected the 66-year-old Chinese-born architect for the job, and last week, despite the outcry over the glass pyramid, he officially approved Pei's plan.

The Louvre is an imposing palace but, notwithstanding its fabulous art collection, an impossible museum. Some 90% of its space is crammed with exhibits of paintings and sculptures. The traffic flow of the 3.7 million people who trek through the Louvre every year is chaotic.

Pei concluded that a thorough revamping of the museum was possible without changing any of the existing architecture. The key: the creation of space underground, an extensive, 750,000-sq.-ft. level including a grand entrance hall, shops, restaurants, audiovisual theaters, storage space and parking area.