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<\/p>\nA baking summer\u2019s afternoon at the Louvre. Milling around the Mona Lisa are maybe 150 people, all with their phones held high above their heads so they can snap that enigmatic smile. Meanwhile, in the vast galleries surrounding Leonardo\u2019s masterpiece, an eternal throng of visitors from every corner of the globe trudges wearily on \u2014 most, this far into the gallery, seemingly oblivious to the glorious art around them.<\/p>\n
Paris\u2019s great museum has about nine miles of galleries, spread over 403 rooms. You enter it from beneath IM Pei\u2019s celebrated glass pyramid, which on a day like this behaves like a giant magnifying glass for the blazing sun. Many visitors probably won\u2019t venture more than half a mile into the heart of the museum. <\/p>\n
But in this huge, former royal palace there is one tranquil room. Far from the madding crowd, Laurence des Cars, 59, the first female director of the Louvre in 228 years, sits in her book-lined office, the picture of the formidable, Sorbonne-educated Parisian intellectual she is. If she is physically distanced from the heaving mass of humanity trudging round her domain, however, her brain is constantly occupied with it.<\/p>\n
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Laurence des Cars is the first female director of the Louvre in 228 years<\/p>\n
ILYES GRIYEB<\/p>\n
\u201cOne of my first decisions when I became the director in 2021 was to limit our daily admissions to 30,000,\u201d she says. \u201cYou know that, just before Covid, the Louvre was getting ten million visitors a year? When I got here the staff said, \u2018Please let\u2019s not go back to that because some days we were up to 45,000 visitors.\u2019 And that figure is too much. Even now we are saturated. The building is suffocating. It\u2019s not good for staff, visitors or the art.\u201d<\/p>\n
Last month the Louvre\u2019s staff emphasised their grievances by going on a spontaneous strike (a \u201cmass expression of exasperation\u201d, their union official said), leaving thousands of tourists outside with no idea why they weren\u2019t being let in. \u201cIt wasn\u2019t a strike,\u201d des Cars says firmly. \u201cIt was a meeting with the unions because of the conditions and especially the heat. I put in place immediate measures to make things better and we reopened that afternoon.\u201d<\/p>\n
All the world\u2019s top museums \u2014 from the Vatican in Rome to the British Museum<\/a> in London \u2014 are facing this same problem: huge congestion, especially around the handful of masterpieces that every tourist has heard of. But the overcrowding is felt most acutely by the Louvre, which still receives more visitors (8.7 million last year) than any other museum, yet has some of the worst facilities.<\/p>\n We know this because six months ago a memo outlining its problems was leaked to a Paris newspaper. It caused a stir not just because it was addressed to Rachida Dati, France\u2019s culture minister, but because it was written by des Cars.<\/p>\n The pyramid entrance: \u201cHaving just one entrance was a nice idea in the 1980s when we had far fewer visitors\u201d<\/p>\n GETTY IMAGES<\/p>\n She was jaw-droppingly frank. \u201cVisiting the Louvre is a physical ordeal,\u201d she wrote. \u201cVisitors have no space to take a break. The food options and restroom facilities are insufficient in volume, falling below international standards. The signage needs to be completely redesigned.\u201d Pei\u2019s pyramid, she went on, creates a \u201cvery inhospitable\u201d atmosphere on hot days. Other parts of the old building are \u201cno longer watertight\u201d. <\/p>\n Nobody has revealed who leaked the memo, but it\u2019s hard to imagine des Cars being upset by the revelation because within days came a dramatic intervention from on high. President Macron announced a redevelopment project that he called the \u201cnouvelle renaissance\u201d of the Louvre. It\u2019s masterminded by des Cars and every bit as radical a reshaping as Fran\u00e7ois Mitterrand\u2019s \u201cgrand proj\u00e9t\u201d of the 1980s, which led to Pei\u2019s pyramid.<\/p>\n By chance it will run simultaneously with something similar in London: the \u00a31 billion masterplan to renovate the British Museum, a coincidence that hasn\u2019t escaped des Cars\u2019 notice. \u201cI talk a lot with Nick Cullinan [the BM\u2019s director],\u201d she says. \u201cHe\u2019s wonderful, a great professional and he\u2019s dealing with exactly the same issues.\u201d<\/p>\n The most controversial feature of des Cars\u2019 plan is her proposed solution to the problem of that huge rugby scrum around the Mona Lisa. She wants to remove the painting to one of several new underground galleries to be excavated under the Cour Carr\u00e9e courtyard, where it will get its own entrance requiring punters to buy an additional ticket (the price is yet to be decided).<\/p>\n \u2022 The secret life of the Louvre: inside the world\u2019s biggest museum<\/a><\/p>\n She also envisages a second entrance to the Louvre on the far side from where the pyramid is. \u201cThe idea of having just one entrance to this enormous museum was a nice idea in the 1980s when the Louvre had just four million visitors a year,\u201d she says. \u201cBut that was before the Berlin Wall fell, before the Chinese started travelling, before international tourism reached the levels we have today. We are going back to what was always the case \u2014 several entrances for the Louvre.\u201d<\/p>\n At the same time the museum will be given a technical makeover. That will take ten years, des Cars estimates, whereas she suggests that the Mona Lisa gallery and the new entrance will be ready by 2031 or 2032. \u201cWe are running a competition to find an architect and will appoint one early next year,\u201d she says. \u201cAnd the Louvre won\u2019t close at all. That\u2019s the strength of having a very large building. You can rebuild half of it and still function in the other half.\u201d<\/p>\n One benefit of all this, des Cars says, is that it will help people to get to different galleries more quickly, introducing more lifts and better signage. \u201cOn the second floor we have the most extraordinary collection of French paintings anywhere in the world and virtually nobody looks at them,\u201d she says. \u201cYou start to think, what\u2019s wrong with Poussin? The answer is nothing. The real problem is that to get from the pyramid to Poussin takes 20 to 25 minutes, and that\u2019s if you walk quickly and don\u2019t get lost. If we can sort out these problems people will discover many new joys.\u201d<\/p>\n It comes at a price, though. The ten-year project is expected to cost about \u00a3700 million. Unlike the British Museum\u2019s masterplan, however, at least half the required funding is already guaranteed. \u201cThe technical renovation will be funded by the Ministry of Culture,\u201d des Cars says. \u201cAs for the new galleries and entrance, our trademark licence deal with the Louvre Abu Dhabi [which des Cars spent six years helping to set up] will give us at least \u00a3175 million. The rest we will raise from corporate and private supporters.\u201d Even here, des Cars has an advantage over her British counterparts. \u201cWhen you say the word Louvre people all over the world pay attention,\u201d she says. <\/p>\n The gallery has one other huge income stream not available to UK museums. It charges for admission and the ticket prices are about to go up \u2014 \u00a319 for EU citizens and a hefty \u00a326 for non-EU visitors, including the poor old Brits. Sounds as if we need to rejoin the EU, I say. \u201cPlease do!\u201d des Cars says, beaming. But what does she think of the UK\u2019s generous policy of keeping its national museums free to all, even foreigners?<\/p>\n \u201cI am absolutely not allowed to make any judgment on that,\u201d she says with a laugh, and then makes one anyway. \u201cI mean, it\u2019s very admirable but is it sustainable in today\u2019s world? That\u2019s a political decision. I leave you to have your debate.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/\/a8741ac4-269f-41d1-875f-d85c82a8d1ac.jpg\")
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