More than a redevelopment, it is a small museum revolution, on the background as in form. On March 25, a patronage agreement was signed between the Louvre, chaired by Laurence des Cars, and the Marc Ladreit Foundation in Lacharrière, for the financing of the overhaul of the sessions in the gallery of the five continents. The opening is scheduled for next November, for the 25th anniversary of the pavilion, which houses 400 masterpieces of Africa, Asia, Oceania and the Americas.
In the fall, in a redesigned presentation, the gallery will see these extra-European works dialogue with those of the Musée du Quai Branly-Jacques Chirac. “It will be a question of revealing the exchanges, influences and sometimes even the hybridizations which may have existed from one civilization to another, so as to make visible what the collections of the Louvre, only, cannot show today”, underlines Marc Ladreit de Lacharrière, historic patron of the Parisian institution which he has supported for more than thirty years.
“8 million people per year”
On the formal level, the reception hall will be entirely renovated, respecting the original architecture and existing materials, while the visitors’ entrance route will be reconfigured. But the largest mutation to come of course is in the opening of a new door to the collections, the Lions door, Quai des Tuileries, which will allow us to unclog current, pyramid and carousel entrances.
“An essential phase for this place that speaks to everyone and welcomes more than 8 million people a year,” points out the Minister of Culture Rachida Dati. “Adapting the Louvre to the challenges of our time is thinking more broadly about how its visitors apprehend it,” comments, for her part, the president of the museum. This overhaul, a key step of the “Renaissance du Louvre” program which will end in 2031, is reminiscent of the museum project of the Louvre Abou Dhabi, of which Marc Ladreit de Lacharrière was the Ouvrière and Laurence des Cars, the scientific director.