Paris Louvre Tuileries

Photo of the Tuileries after the fire

The Louvre and the Tuileries

This is “royal Paris”, a district of the French capital that no visitor should miss. Palace of the Kings and Queens of France, the Louvre has now become one of the world’s most visited museum. The gardens of the Tuileries provide a restful promenade right in the centre of Paris. The Louvre and the Tuileries are the starting points of the grand Historical Axis. This magnificent vista runs through some of Paris’ most celebrated monuments and squares: the Glass Pyramid of the Louvre in the Cour Napoléon, the Arc du Carrousel, the former Palace of the Tuileries destroyed in the 19th Century, and the gardens of the Tuileries. Beyond, the axis crosses the majestic Place de la Concorde and its Egyptian obelisk before running through the Champs-Elysées, dominated by the famous Arc de Triomphe.

Le Louvre et les Tuileries

The Glass Pyramid of the Louvre

The Equestrian Statue of Louis XIV

The great perspective starts at the Louvre, immediately beyond the Church of St Germain l’Auxerrois. The crab-shaped Palace was the main residence of the kings of France until 1682, when Louis XIV, the ‘Sun King’, moved his court to Versailles. It currently houses one of the world’s most wonderful museums in a complex that is known as the “Grand Louvre”.

The medieval castle which no longer exists today was built by King Philip Augustus in the 12th Century. Its foundations (including the keep, two towers and the support of the drawbridge) were excavated during the 1980s restoration and can be seen at the basement level. In 1546, King Francis I (François 1er) decided to dismantle the medieval fortress in order to replace it with a larger and more fashionable structure based on the Renaissance. The Cour Carrée is one of the finest examples of Renaissance architecture in France.

The Louvre Palace

Napoleon and Napoleon III worked on achieving the ‘Grand Dessein’ (Great Design) which King Henry IV (16th C) had in mind, which was to join the Louvre to the Tuileries Palace by a series of wings. The new complex was then a formidable array of buildings, the largest in Europe, as the Tuileries Palace closed off the western end of the Louvre courtyard.

As for President François Mitterand, he left his mark with his pharaonic project of “Le Grand Louvre” that had to be completed for the bicentennial celebration of the French Revolution in 1989. The titanic project comprised of major renovation works (clearing the façade, transforming the interior, and the construction of underground hallways and a commercial centre), moving the Finance Ministry to a new modern building in Bercy, and the construction of a new landmark along the Historical Axis: the celebrated Glass Pyramid.

Some like it, others hate it... the imposing but controversial Glass Pyramid commissioned by Mitterand from Ieoh Ming Pei has played a major role in the “Grand Louvre” in serving as its principal entrance since 1988. With a height of 20 metres and its some 670 glass segments, the transparent monument echoes the Obelisk that rears up towards the sky in Place de la Concorde. It is not a surprise to find an Egyptian theme, dear to Mitterrand, in Paris. Besides, Ieoh Ming Pei may have come across similar design projects that had been proposed without success in the past. In fact a baroque pyramid was indeed put forward to be built in the Cour Napoléon for the centennial celebrations of the Revolution.

The symbolism behind the Egyptian pyramid lies in the cult of the Supreme Being (“Etre Suprême”) which can be seen in the frontispiece of the 1789 Declaration of Human Rights. This Masonic symbol (the ‘Eye in the Pyramid’) was also used in America. But even before the French Revolution, a pyramid to the glory of the Sun King was also proposed for the Cour Carrée by a French architect.

Further to the West lies another glass structure, the Inverted Pyramid (“Pyramide Inversée”) only visible from the underground “Galerie Carrousel du Louvre”. It brings a well of light to the centre of the visitor complex.

In the Cour Napoléon, the Historical Axis does not run through the Glass Pyramid and the centreline of the courtyard. This led architect Pei to request that a particular statue of Louis XIV be placed adjacent to the Pyramid and in the direct path of the Historical axis. The equestrian statue made in bronze portrays the Sun King as ‘Alexander the Great’. It is a later copy of the original statue executed by Bernini in 1668 in marble to be displayed at Versailles.

As for today, the axis leads through the Cour Napoléon to strike the Sully Pavilion, thus deviating from the centre line of the courtyard, where the Glass Pyramid now stands. From the second window of the Sully façade, the view along the great perspective all the way to the Grande Arche of La Défense is spectacular, and only a few Paris insiders will know of it!

The Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel

The first monument to be aligned with the Historical Axis is the Arc du Carrousel, a triumphal arch built by Napoleon from 1807 to 1808 to celebrate the victory of the French imperial army in Austerlitz. The Arc du Carrousel was designed by Charles Percier and Pierre-François-Léonard Fontaine on the model of the Arch of Septimius Severus and the Arch of Constantine in Rome. Note the resemblance of this triumphal arch to that of Nancy built some 60 years before.

The arch is relatively small compared to the Arc de Triomphe at 20 metres high. Remarkably renovated, its bas-reliefs depict the Peace of Pressburg, the 1805 campaign (Napoleon entering Munich, Napoleon entering Vienna, the Battle of Austerlitz, the Tilsit Conference) and the surrender of Ulm.

Let’s remember that on completion, the view of the Great Perspective from Arc du Carrousel was blocked westwards by the Tuileries Palace.

The Palace of Tuileries was a royal residence which was located between the Flore and Marsan Pavilions. It was commissioned by Catherine de Medici in 1564 on the site of a tile factory (hence the French name ‘Tuilerie’ deriving from ‘tuile’ – tile). The young Louis XIV lived there, as did Napoleon Bonaparte who made the Tuileries the centre of his imperial power. It was severely damaged by a fire during the upheaval of the Paris Commune in 1871. In 1883, the Government resolutely cleared away the ruins, despite the protests of Baron Haussmann and other influent French personalities.

Prior to its destruction, the Palace of the Tuileries played a full role along the Historical Axis as it was its real starting point. Its absence moved the visual start of the axis back to the Cour Napoléon to reveal a deviation of the axis to visitors. For garden architect Le Nôtre planned the axis to run from the Tuileries and its gardens in the 17th century.

The Tuileries Palace

There is serious debate that the Tuileries will be rebuilt one day. The National Committee for the Reconstruction of the Tuileries is working to that end and the project has a serious chance of succeeding. Many reasons have been put forward to convince the authorities (and the French!) of the benefit of such an operation.

First it would return the royal complex of the Louvre to its former glory, that of “Le Grand Dessein” (the “Great Design”) and allow more exhibition facilities for the rich collections of the museum.

Secondly, since all the furniture and paintings which used to decorate the inside of the Palace still exist today (they were stored in a safe place during the Franco-Prussian War before the 1871 fire), it would be quite simple to return them to their initial location.

If you wish to support the reconstruction of the Tuileries, find out more at: www.tuileries.fr.

From the Place du Carrousel, the Tuileries Gardens offer an unbroken vista along the centreline of the Historical Axis towards the Place de la Concorde, the Arc de Triomphe and the Grande Arche.

The Tuileries Gardens

The Louvre and the Tuileries

The impeccably formal Gardens of the Tuileries were designed and laid out from 1640 by André Le Nôtre along the Historical Axis that he started to trace. The garden is bordered along all its length, by Rue de Rivoli to the North and River Seine to the South. It remains the largest and oldest public garden in Paris today.

Similar to those in the Luxembourg Gardens, the typically Parisian seats in the Jardin des Tuileries are often portrayed in postcards or photographs. They have been placed for public use by the municipality. In summer, children can rent toy sailing boats to sail on the large pond close to the Carrousel.

The boundary of the gardens and the Place de la Concorde is marked by two terraces on each side, on which two famous museums stand: the Musée de l’Orangerie (overlooking the Seine) and the Galerie Nationale du Jeu de Paume (bordering Rue de Rivoli). The former houses the famous Nymphéas from Monet, a series of water-lily paintings.The view from the top of the terrace overlooking the Place de la Concorde, the Champs-Elysées, the Arc de Triomphe and the Eiffel Tower in the distance is magnificent.