There glass pyramid It is, today, one of the most recognizable symbols of the Louvre Museum Of Paris. It is a rather recent work, created between 1985 and the 1989 by the Sino-American architect Ieoh Ming Pei. The choice to build such a building inside the Napoleon courtyard was actually part of a larger renovation project called Grand Louvre, which in that decade modernized and expanded the museum.
From a technical point of view, the pyramid measures 35.42 meters wide For 21.64 in height and has the same proportions of the Great pyramid of Gizain Egypt. One of the main challenges was to obtain a extremely transparent glass, So as to allow to observe the Louvre palace in all its beauty both from the inside and outside the pyramid. Do you think that two years of research were needed to obtain it: in the end they were used about 2000 square meters of glass plates from the thickness of 21 millimeters. These were shaped to obtain 675 rhombuses And 118 triangles, then embedded inside a steel frame made up of 6000 bar And 2150 knots.
The architect chose this symbol for amaze and innovatealso going to modernize the entry of the structure that was moved underground from the surface. But it is not over: a new exhibition wing was also created within the project, the Richelieu, as well as underground deposits for the collections. Obviously the choice of the pyramid did not agree: many considered it not very consistent with the rest of the structure, fueling debates and controversies. In the end, however, as happened also for the Eiffel Tower, the pyramid began to become popular, so much so that it is still one of the most recognizable symbols of the museum today.
