The Mona Lisa Is Getting Her Own Private Room
The Louvre has selected the architects who will transform the world's most visited museum, and the centerpiece of the project is something that millions of visitors have quietly wished for every time they jostled for a glimpse of a painting behind bullet-proof glass: a dedicated room for the Mona Lisa, designed from the ground up to give her, and the people who come to see her, an entirely different kind of experience. France's Ministry of Culture announced that New York-based Selldorf Architects and Studios Architecture Paris have been chosen from a pool of over 100 competitors to lead the Louvre Nouvelle Renaissance, a renovation and expansion expected to cost up to one billion dollars and be completed by 2031. The winning design was described by France's culture minister as respectful and contemporary, creating an elegant connection between the city, the palace, and the museum. A second new entrance near the Seine River will be built to ease the crushing overcrowding at I.M. Pei's famous glass pyramid, which was designed to handle roughly half the foot traffic it receives today.
The new Mona Lisa space will be roughly 2,000 square meters, nearly three times the size of the room where she currently hangs, and she will be the only work displayed there, allowing visitors to actually contemplate the painting rather than photograph strangers in front of it. For the first time, visitors will also be able to enter and exit the Mona Lisa room without walking through the rest of the museum, meaning a dedicated ticket for just the painting will be an option. The overhaul is expected to increase the Louvre's annual capacity from around 8.7 million visitors to 12 million, and will also address longstanding infrastructure issues including water leaks, temperature control failures, and the security vulnerabilities that allowed a 100 million dollar jewelry heist in recent years. Annabelle Selldorf, the German-born architect who leads the New York firm, said the project is a once-in-a-generation opportunity, and that the goal is to honor what the Louvre already is while making it work for the world it now lives in.
