Located in the 1st district of Paris, between the Tuileries Garden and Saint-Germain-l'Auxerrois, on the right bank of the Seine, the Louvre Palace is a former royal palace now hosting the famous eponymous museum.
The largest European palace with an area of 135,000 m² and the second largest building on the continent, it welcomes more than nine million visitors each year, making it the most visited museum in the world.
Originally fortress of Philip Augustus in the twelfth century, whose moat are still visible in the gallery of the Carrousel, the Louvre Palace changes over the centuries, gradually taking the face that we know today. Under Charles V, in the fourteenth century, it became a comfortable residence with a library that will be the starting point of the National Library of France. Shaven and rebuilt under Francis I, the palace is modernized, taking a more Renaissance style. However, we must wait for Louis XIV and Versailles, so that the site is gradually frequented by intellectuals and artists of the time.
The French Revolution precipitated the opening of this new gallery to the public, with collections growing as war and confiscations. More recently, in 1981, François Mitterrand brings him a last touch of originality and modernity with the construction of the most famous pyramid of the country realized by Ieoh Ming Pei.
In addition to the Louvre Museum, the palace also houses the collections of Decorative Arts, the Ecole du Louvre, the Research and Restoration Center of the Museums of France, the commercial galleries of the Carrousel, or the exhibition spaces of Paris Expo over 7000 m².
