Among the great projects of the eighties which were constructed in France none has been more spectacular and interesting than I.M.Pei's extention of the Louvre, in other words his glass pyramid. Pei who is in fact the first foreign architect to have worked on the Louvre during the previous three decades concluded his task with great satisfaction. Giovanni Lorenzo Bernini, the famous Italian artisian, sculptor and architect who had been previously invited to the Louvre in 1665 faced a storm of national fanaticism and thus forced to leave paris.With an inspiration from the four thousand years old pyramid of Cheops, the Egyptian Pharaoh, and the study of contemporary technology, Pei managed to present a modern, light and translucent composition of steel and glass. The glass gem designed by I.M.Pei in the center of the Napoleonic square of the Louvre resulted in the construction of a fine enterace which guides a large number of the visitors in to the Great Louvre every day.During the extention, the total area of the exhibition halls were doubled, resulting in a total area of 186000 Sq.meters, turning the Louvre into the largest museum of art in the world. This article aims to present the fine characteristics of a building which is beleived to be the prime example of the competent and yet presumptous contemporary architecture which aims to restore and rehabilitate the traditional forms of architecture.
)
