What will the new entrance to the Louvre Museum look like? Discover the first images

Announced by Emmanuel Macron in January 2025, the ambitious “Louvre new renaissance” project includes a repair component and another, more functional, called “Louvre grand colonnade”. It provides for the development on the east side of the palace of a new access under the imposing colonnade built in the 17th century.^ecentury by the architect Claude Perrault, the development of a temporary exhibition space under the Cour Carrée, and a room dedicated to the “Mona Lisa”.

The jury of the international architectural competition, which was initially scheduled to meet on February 11, finally delivered its verdict on May 13. Five groups were finalists. The name of the winning team was revealed by the Ministry of Culture on Monday morning. These are STUDIOS Architecture Paris and Selldorf Architects, “selected for the quality of its architectural proposal and its heritage, urban and landscape integration, fully integrating the issues of quality of reception of the public, clarity of paths, sobriety and greening, all with relevant consideration of security issues “.

According to the first visual elements shared, the project proposes to soberly develop the intimidating ditches dug by André Malraux in the 1960s and the neighboring urban spaces where rows of parked tourist buses line up today.

The historic East-West axis (Louvre, Tuileries, Champs-Elysées, Arc de Triomphe, Grande Arche de la Défense…) is extended.

The descent towards the ditches, vegetated and presented as future “islands of freshness”, is mainly carried out by two symmetrical ramps on a gentle slope sheltered in the thickness of the stone of the counterscarp wall. New restaurant and bookstore areas, set up under the ramps and in the hollow of the wall, will be accessible from the moat level.

The two new underground entrances to the museum located on either side of the moats, on the Seine side and rue de Rivoli, provide access to “clear and functional” reception areas opening onto the new exhibition spaces and the route of the “Mona Lisa”, the whole being connected to the other parts of the museum.

“Reconnecting the Louvre with the city”

STUDIOS Architecture Paris is the French agency of an international collective founded in 1985, present in New York, Washington, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Toronto. The Louis Vuitton Foundation, in Paris, and the LUMA Foundation, in Arles, designed by Frank Gehry, are among his major cultural achievements.

Selldorf Architects, an associated design firm, was founded in New York in 1988 by Annabelle Selldorf. She has already carried out the renovation of The Frick Collection in New York and the National Gallery in London (Sainsbury Wing). The agency will also be responsible for the scenography and museography of the new spaces at the Louvre.

BASE Landscape Architecture will be in charge of the landscape and urban planning component.

Rue de Valois recalled the objectives of the “Grande Colonnade” plan:

“Better welcome visitors and make their visit more fluid by creating a new access […] and new circulations to make the Louvre breathe and irrigate all its collection presentation spaces; highlight the historic entrance to the Louvre […] in a new and vegetated composition; reconnect the Louvre with the city […] ; create a space dedicated to the Mona Lisa, allowing the public to discover and contemplate it in satisfactory conditions; provide the Louvre Museum with a modular temporary exhibition space of high technical level; renew the experience and comfort of visiting with new relaxation areas and services (catering and boutique bookstores) to make the Louvre more hospitable, inside and outside the museum.”

Emmanuel Macron had promised an inauguration in 2031.

Here are the first images of the project: