The Louvre: 800 years of history

From a medieval fortress to an art museum, the Louvre Palace has undergone eight centuries of architectural transformation, making it an embodiment of French history. In the Middle Ages, to protect the city, King Philippe Auguste built a square defensive fortress between the Seine and the walls of Paris. One and a half centuries later, in the heart of the city now enclosed by a new outer wall, the Louvre Fortress was converted into a royal residence by King Charles V. François I used the castle as his main residence, but it was his son, Henri II, who had the first wing of the modern palace built, which would become a prime example of the French Renaissance style. When Henri II died, his widow, Catherine de' Medici, started building and designing the Tuileries Palace and its gardens for her personal use outside the city walls. King Henri IV had the Grande Galerie built on the waterfront to join the Louvre to the Tuileries Palace. At 460 meters, it was the longest building ever seen in Paris, and the first milestone of an ambitious project that would continue under his successors. At the beginning of his reign, Louis XIV had the Cour Carrée made to its current dimensions and extended the Tuileries Palace, where he lived before leaving the Louvre to move prominently to the Château de Versailles. The Tuileries was used as the seat of power during the French Revolution. In 1793, the Muséum Central des Arts opened in the Grande Galerie of the Louvre. Emperor Napoleon I created a focal point for the Tuileries Garden with the Arc de Carousel, dedicated to his armies, and had a gallery constructed to unite the northern parts of the two palaces. To complete the works to unite the Louvre and Tuileries that had been ongoing since Henri IV's reign, Emperor Napoleon III boosted construction efforts and built new wings on either side of the Clos Napoléon. He doubled the size of the Louvre and completed the great architectural project undertaken by the kings of France. The Louvre survived the town fire of 1871 that engulfed the Tuileries Palace almost scathe-free. Once the ruins had been fully removed in 1883, the Louvre continued to change, acquiring its symbolic glass pyramid marking the entrance to the museum in the 20th century.