Louvre Museum in Crisis, Urging Help for Renovation

January 27, 2025 | 09:15 pm

TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - The Louvre Museum is asking for help from the French government to renovate its exhibition halls and protect the artworks inside. This was revealed in a letter from Louvre President Laurence des Cars to Culture Minister Rachida Dati. In the letter, which was leaked to the Paris newspaper Le Parisien, Laurence Des Cars outlined some of the museum's worrying conditions.

"Visiting the Louvre is a physical challenge; accessing the artworks takes time and is not always easy," des Cars wrote, as reported by Euronews. "Visitors have no space to rest. Food options and toilet facilities are inadequate, below international standards. Signage needs to be completely redesigned."

Des Cars, who became director of the Louvre in 2021 after serving as director of the Musée d'Orsay and the Musée de l'Orangerie, also voiced concerns about the preservation of the museum's artworks.

She said the museum's spaces are in a very poor state, partly due to overcrowding. "Some are no longer watertight, while others are subject to significant temperature changes, compromising the preservation of the artworks," wrote Des Cars, the first woman to be appointed as the director of the iconic French landmark.

Over the years, the museum has seen many new buildings. The most prominent is a glass pyramid structure designed by Chinese-American architect I.M. Pei. It was completed in 1989, and in the 1990s an underground passageway through the pyramid was used as the main entrance above the previous street-level entrance.

The pyramid is also a focus for des Cars. "On very hot days, the glass roof creates a greenhouse effect, making the space extremely inhospitable to passersby and the staff who work there," she wrote.

The Louvre was first established in 1793 in the Louvre Palace, which was originally a medieval fortress first built in the 12th century. There are still remnants of Philip II-era fortifications in the museum's basement.

The Louvre was designed to welcome four million visitors a year. But last year the number of visitors reached 8.7 million visitors. The record high was in 2018, when 10.2 million visitors came. To cope with the crowds, Des Cars has limited the number of daily visitors in 2022 to 30,000, from the pre-pandemic figure of 45,000.

Des Cars has also proposed creating a second entrance to the museum. He has also suggested putting the Mona Lisa in a special room, so that there are not too many people visiting it. Although he did not mention the funding needed, French TV news channel BFM said the renovation could cost as much as 500 million euros (around Rp8.3 trillion). It will be a challenge for President Emmanuel Macron's government, which has struggled to get its 2025 budget approved by parliament.

EURO NEWS | VN EXPRESS

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