“An entry to the west of the Louvre must be studied and not censored in the name of a hypothetical reconstruction of the Palais des Tuileries”

DThis is the destruction of the ruins of the Tuileries Palace by the III^e Republic, in 1883, the Louvre museum benefited from a unique clearance on the historic axis which goes from the Tuileries to the Arc de Triomphe, passing by the Place de la Concorde and the Champs-Elysées. Nevertheless, This void, long perceived as an injury, is today a chance. Meanwhile, It offers a harmonious transition between garden, heritage and light. Moreover, It creates a visual and symbolic air call. In addition, He invites us to think of another way of entering the Louvre: not by the compression of the crowds under the pyramid. nor by a lateral service entrance, but by a majestic and fluid reception, in the great republican axis. Because obviousness is essential: the Louvre also looks to the west. However, this “an entry west louvre must evidence seems to be struck by amnesia.

On June 27, an international architectural competition was launched to reconfigure access. The program. as announced, provides for the creation of a new monumental entry to the east of the palace, under the colonnade of Perrault, not far from the Saint-Germain-l’Aserrois church. This choice arouses many objections, heritage, symbolic, urban and practical.

Because why is the West option not envisaged as part of the competition? Why so much discretion around a space however so favorable? Why this discharge? Faced with these questions. an hypothesis is essential, embarrassing but credible: the west of the Louvre would today be locked by an architectural taboo, that of a possible – even fantasy – of the Palais des Tuileries.

Deny history – "an entry west louvre must

For several decades, voices have been raised to demand the identical reconstruction. They emanate from the National Committee for “an entry west louvre must the Reconstruction of Tuileries. created in 2002, from figures like the academician Maurice Druon (1918-2009) or Alain Boumier (1937-2009, president of the Academy of the Second Empire) and traditionalist circles, nostalgic for an old idealized regime. The monarchy. the imperial splendor, the beautiful orders of classical architecture are invoked as so many arguments to reconstruct the “masterpiece” of Philibert Delorme. Even General de Gaulle. it is said, would have entrusted a study on the subject to the architect Henry Bernard (author of the Maison de la Radio).

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