You may have seen the pictures: crowds of people standing on their tippy toes and contorting their bodies with phones held up high, all to get a glimpse and probably a photo of Leonardo da Vinci’s “Mona Lisa.”
While efforts have been made to control the chaos, it seems the scene has reached a tipping point — so much so that the famous painting is now getting a dedicated room at Paris’ Louvre museum. Once the change has gone into effect, visitors will need to purchase a separate ticket and access a different entrance to see the painting.
“The Louvre will be redesigned and restored to become the epicenter of art history for our country and beyond,” French President Emmanuel Macron announced Tuesday, per The New York Times.
The room revamp is part of a bigger museum renovation and expansion plan, which includes overhauling aging infrastructure and creating the new entrance to alleviate overcrowding. All of the above will be partly paid for by increasing ticket prices for visitors from countries outside the European Union starting next year. The entire venture, dubbed the “New Renaissance” project, is projected to cost up to $830 million, AFP reports.
Macron also announced France’s plans to launch an “international architecture competition” in early 2025 for the designs of the new structures, with the winners selected by the end of the year to have the transformation completed by 2031.
While the iconic painting is currently drawing in almost 9 million annual visitors, Macron aims to increase that number to 12 million. As it stands now, the Louvre is forced to restrict attendance to 30,000 people per day — 80% of whom are there to view the Mona Lisa, per the Times. Most of those visitors enter through the museum’s glass and steel pyramid, which was intended to welcome only 4 million a year. The upcoming renovations should disperse some of that number to the new entrance.
Part of the motivation for the revamp is concern over the building’s current conditions. A memo from Louvre director Laurence des Cars to the French Minister of Culture, Rachida Dati, warned that some areas of the museum “are no longer watertight, while others experience significant temperature variations, endangering the preservation of artworks,” newspaper Le Parisian revealed. It also noted that the hordes of visitors are creating a “physical strain” on the structure.
“Each day this very room is the scene of intense agitation,” des Cars said in a speech before Macron’s on Tuesday, referencing many visitors’ frustration as they crowd in to see the artwork. She added: “The Louvre’s exceptional visitor numbers are not a curse, they’re a source of pride. It’s also a challenge to reinvent ourselves and remain faithful to our public service mission.”
But beyond improving the experience, this venture is steeped in legacy-making, as Macron will close out his term in 2027 and wants to do so on a high note. “He started his presidency at the Louvre, and he wants to end it at the Louvre,” said Julien Lacaze, the president of Sites et Monuments, referencing Macron’s 2017 victory speech in front of the museum.
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