Louvre Pyramid
Louvre Pyramid is the large glass pyramid at the front of the Louvre museum in Paris. Commissioned by then French president François Mitterrand, it was designed by Chinese-American architect I.M. Pei, and completed in 1989. It reaches a height of 20.6 meters (about 70 feet); its square base has sides of 35 meters (115 feet). The pyramid covers the Louvre entresol and forms part of the new entrance to the museum.
Original proposal
It is not well known that a baroque pyramid was proposed for the centennial celebrations of the 1789 French Revolution. It is possible that the architect I.M. Pei was aware of these designs when he chose a pyramid form, for the bicentennial celebrations of 1989.
Controversy
The construction of the pyramid triggered considerable controversy, many people feeling that this futuristic edifice looks quite out of place in front of the Louvre Museum with its classical architecture. Certain detractors ascribed a "Pharaonic complex" to Mitterrand. Others came to appreciate the juxtaposing of contrasting architectural styles as a successful merger of the old and the new, the classical and the ultra-modern.
The main pyramid is actually only the largest of several glass pyramids that were constructed near the museum, including the downward-pointing La Pyramide Inversée that functions as a skylight in an underground mall in front of the museum.
"666 panes": an urban myth
It has been claimed by some that the glass panes in the Louvre Pyramid number exactly 666, "the number of the beast", often associated with Satan. Various conspiracy theorists have ascribed some deeper, sinister meaning to this supposed fact. For instance, Dominique Stezepfandt's book François Mitterrand, Grand Architecte de l'Univers declares that "the pyramid is dedicated to a power described as the Beast in the Book of Revelation (...) The entire structure is based on the number 6."
The story of the "666 panes" originated in the 1980s, when the official brochure published during construction did indeed cite this number (even twice, though a few pages earlier the total number of panes was given as 672 instead). The number 666 was also mentioned in various newspapers. The Louvre museum however states that the finished pyramid contains 673 glass panes (603 rhombi and 70 triangles).[1] A higher figure was obtained by David A. Shugarts, who reports that according to the offices of I.M. Pei, the pyramid contains 698 pieces of glass (Secrets of the Code, edited by Dan Burstein, p. 259). Various attempts to actually count the panes in the pyramid have produced slightly discrepant results, but there are definitely more than 666.
The myth resurfaced in 2003, when Dan Brown incorporated it in his best-selling novel The Da Vinci Code. Here the protagonist reflects that "this pyramid, at President Mitterrand's explicit demand, had been constructed of exactly 666 panes of glass - a bizarre request that had always been a hot topic among conspiracy buffs who claimed 666 was the number of Satan" (p. 21). However, David A. Shugarts reports that according to a spokeswoman of the offices of I.M. Pei, the French President never specified the number of panes to be used in the pyramid. Noting how the 666 rumor circulated in some French newspapers in the mid-1980s, she commented: "If you only found those old articles and didn't do any deeper fact checking, and were extremely credulous, you might believe the 666 story" (Secrets of the Code, p. 259).
References in popular culture
The pyramid was shown in the film adaptation of The Da Vinci Code.
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