In a confidential note sent on January 13 to the Minister of Culture, Rachida Dati, Laurence des Cars, president of the Louvre museum, expressed serious concerns about the state of several buildings of the famous Parisian museum. This information was reported by Le Parisien, emphasizing that the architectural heritage, located in the heart of the Louvre Palace in the 1st arrondissement of Paris, shows worrying signs of degradation.
Laurence des Cars highlighted “the severe reality of the state of our overworked buildings”, some of them having reached “a worrying level of obsolescence”. She observed a “multiplication of damage” within the museum, with spaces heavily affected. Some buildings suffer from watertightness problems, while others display worrying temperature variations that threaten the preservation of precious works of art.
The report points to the model of the Grand Louvre and its famous pyramid, a design initiated by François Mitterrand in the 1980s, criticizing its ability to respond to influxes of modern visitors. Initially, the museum was expected to welcome 4 million visitors per year, but it recorded more than ten million visitors before the pandemic and 8.7 million in 2024, according to Le Parisien.
-To deal with this critical situation, the director of the Louvre has limited the number of visitors to 30,000 per day and calls for “major work” to remedy the pressing problems. She says: “This situation can no longer tolerate the status quo.”
The Louvre, a former royal residence and cultural jewel in the heart of Paris, brings together a precious collection, ranging from Antiquity to 19th century masterpieces, including iconic pieces such as the Mona Lisa and the Venus de Milo. This information was read on the website of our colleagues from Anadolu.
