The Hall of Islamic Art in the Louvre, Paris

Architects: Mario Bellini, Rudy Ricciotti
Text: Eszter Götz
Photos: Musée du Louvre, Mario Bellini Architects

The most frequented museum in the world, the Paris-based Louvre opened this September its 3000 m2 new wing devoted to Islamic art. The Islam Wing reveals an extraordinary formal-structural solution: projectint toward the River Seine the so-called Visconti-court is occupied by a two-storey pavillion with a spectacular glass roofing, the shape of which evokes a veil being lifted with a gentle gesture. The duo of architects, Mario Bellini from Milan and the French Rudy Ricciotti won the tender published in 2005 to design the extension. The new wing is not a building in the traditional sense of the word but it is not only a roffing of the cortile either: it mostly reminds us of a veil floating in the wind which almost touches the ground at a point in the cortile, but is still totally separated from the elevations of the cortile of the Louvre. The beauty of the structure gently counterbalances the strict geometry of the entrance pyramid made of glass triangles, resolving the abstract spirituality of it with the liveliness of an ancient culture.

Építészek: Mario Bellini, Rudy Ricciotti
Tervezés: Mario Bellini Architects, Agence Rudy Ricciotti Architecture
Építész tervezők: Giovanna Bonfanti, Giovanni Cappelletti, Maurizio Di Lauro
Kiállítási installáció: Mario Bellini, Renaud Pierard
Statika: BERIM
Tetőszerkezet: Studio Majowiecki
Homlokzat: Andrea Compagno