Macron announces a major overhaul to modernize Louvre and a dedicated room for ‘Mona Lisa'

Los Angeles Times

28-01-2025

PARIS — French President Emmanuel Macron announced Tuesday that the 'Mona Lisa' will get its own dedicated room inside the Louvre museum, which he said will be renovated and expanded in a major overhaul that will take years to complete.
The renovation will include a new entrance near the Seine, to be opened by 2031, and the creation of underground rooms, Macron said in a speech from the Louvre room where the 'Mona Lisa' is displayed.
Macron did not disclose the cost, estimated to run into hundreds of millions of euros, to modernize the most visited museum in the world. The Louvre has been plagued with overcrowding and outdated facilities.
Its latest overhaul dates to the 1980s, when the iconic glass pyramid was unveiled. The museum is no longer up to international standards.
Here's a look at what's at stake:
Louvre Director Laurence des Cars sent a note expressing a series of concerns to Culture Minister Rachida Dati earlier this month saying the museum is threatened by 'obsolescence.'
According to the document first released by French newspaper Le Parisien, she warned about the gradual degradation of the building due to water leaks, temperature variations and other issues 'endangering the preservation of artworks.'
The pyramid that serves at the museum's entrance, unveiled in 1989 as part of a project spearheaded by the late President François Mitterrand, now appears outdated. The place is not properly insulated from the cold and the heat and tends to amplify noise, making the space uncomfortable for both the public and the staff, Des Cars stressed.
In addition, the museum suffers from a lack of food offerings and restroom facilities, she said.
'We're faced with a collective challenge,' an official at the French presidency said. 'That is, how can we adapt the Louvre to expectations, welcome visitors from across the world in comfortable conditions and also be leading a commitment for artistic and cultural education?' The official could not be named in line with the French presidency's customary practices.
The financing needed for such a major renovation has not been specified, but any renovation work at the former royal palace is expected to be costly and technically complicated.
The Pompidou Center, another major museum in Paris, is set to close at the end of the year to undergo a five-year renovation costing $273 million.
Half of the Louvre's budget is financed by the French state, including the wages of the 2,200 employees.
The other half is provided by private funds, including ticket sales, earnings from restaurants, shops and bookings for special events, as well as patrons and other partners. That includes the United Arab Emirates' financing for the right to use the brand for the Louvre Abu Dhabi museum.
Questions had arisen about how the 'Mona Lisa' should be displayed in the museum.
Des Cars asked for the issue to be 'reassessed,' suggesting a possible transfer of the museum's most popular attraction to another room that would be dedicated to it. That's what Macron said will happen.
The 'Mona Lisa' is now being shown behind protective glass in the museum's largest room, overcrowded with long, noisy queues of visitors eager to take a selfie with Leonardo da Vinci's masterpiece. That makes some other paintings in the room by the greatest Venetian painters, including Titian and Veronese, go unnoticed by many.
The museum's renovation in the 1980s was designed to receive 4 million annual visitors.
Last year, the Louvre received 8.7 million visitors, over three-quarters being foreigners, mostly from the United States, China and neighboring countries Italy, Britain, Germany and Spain.
Corbet writes for the Associated Press.