The battle of the pyramid

Frank Johnson

Paris

Word will have reached the rest of the world that they are going to build a pyramid in the middle of this city. Since these things tend to come out in a rather fragmentary form, the rest of the world may be wondering: why? Paris has a Rue des Pyramides, a Place des Pyramides and a Metro station called Pyramides. But it may not be immediately clear why it needs an ac- tual pyramid.

On the whole, it does not. What it needs is a new entrance to the Louvre. The museum is overwhelming as to its contents, but alas, equally overwhelming to enter. Once in, past pitiless women at the guichets, it is peculiarly demoralising. A lot of the pictures are ill-hung. There is much confusion as to which period you are in. One minute you are at the apogee of Romanticism, with the Raft of Medusa heaving before you. The next, a change of mood is required for the sublimities of Poussin. But the Ministry of Finance is moving out of one wing of the Louvre. The hanging can be reorganised, and visitors are to be beckoned in via an entrance set in the middle of the Cour de Napoleon, the court- yard of the three-sided building. From the entrance building, visitors will move through underground corridors to the various galleries all of which will be reorganised. The entrance building will also contain restaurants and shops selling books and reproductions, for French cultural officialdom has been impressed by American museums, in particular, of the Metropolitan, New York, and the National Gallery, Washington. Al! this will sound vulgar or enticing, according to taste, and perhaps a little of both. Certainly, to anyone in their forties, it is only in recent years — thanks to American practice that museums have ceased to be sombre places. But the Louvre still reminds one of the grim cultural excursions of schooldays.

in That kind of thing is out now, evertrns France. For better or for worse, irinseu— are expected to be 'fun'. The question, then, arose: what shoo° the new entrance be like? It would have be attractive and, indeed, 'fun'. Otheros' the whole strategy would fail. Soundlag5r were . taken. A Chinese-American' Ifei American-Chinese, architect called lvirLd submitted his pyramid. Moreover, he ";I designed the new extension of the Nati°-1,1 Gallery, Washington, which had apparent attracted thousands of extra visitors a yea,r; Paris chose the Pei pyramid. WhereuP:; u. pro.ar. Or possibly: phoney uproar. of is difficult to judge the true depth of feeling against the project. Since the ca,rh'e 1970s, and the public's revulsion against modern movement, politicians throug"ue the West have probably realised that ale,r, are rewards in posing as the defender Of 4; heritage. Mr Pei is not at all a rnuclie(ry movement figure. His National Gal`e;c' extension, it could be argued, is a re,,r- tionary work — hence its charm and ell-to mous popularity. But Parisians are riut know that. Their fear is not that the r of design is a pyramid. Paris is hapPilY such o,just a s n inNoB,ritthaeferaorairsinthgat it is new es So, from the backbenches would feet in defence of form and desigrh The pyramid has quickly entered politics'. -st pyramid was the choice of a Ministry of Culture and was aPP fi Soetall a roved baYal Socialist President in his capacitY as constitutional authority over P-,bne. monuments, of which the Louvre is one That made it a Left-Right issue, it seer° he The conservative Figaro announced tide news under the headline 'Line PYraflies Incongrue au Louvre', and ran a secriiii; inevitably entitled 'The new Battle 0' 'ro, bePVtithare Pyramids', which did admit some Para! pyramid contributions from the ctat-in bureaucracy, but was anti-pyrann'

overall tone, as were the readers' letters.

The Gaullist Mayor of Paris, M Jacques Chirac, as befitted a politician who could be campaigning for President at a time when the pyramid might have become unex- Pectedly popular, positioned himself carefully. 'I do not find it fitting that a pro- ject so important be envisaged with there A. N. Wilson

rig been contact with neither the city of

hay;

Paris nor with myself,' he said. ... I was never

consulted on the project, neither directly nor indirectly. I took cognisance of it via the press. I have seen somephoto- giaPhs with do not permit me to make a Judgment. Mr Pei is without doubt a great architect. For the rest I will wait before judging Humbler politicians did not have to be so Jclici°us. M Caldague, the conservative nator for the 1st Arrondissement, said he was shocked at the presumption of inserting such architecture into an historic composi- tion in relation to which it was necessary to Practise a certain humility. M Henry Ber- nard, the Inspector Civil Buildings and NationalGeneral Palaces, of said the PYraMid was a 'useless gadget.' He was also irritated that the job had gone to a deed' than which it is impossible to be more 2reign in Paris: I am surprised that they hsought a Chinese architect in America to ealwith a development in the historic of the capital of France.' ,,,All of which will be interpreted as ;rtench xenophobia'. That would be arroug. Most of it is just French politics. More wonderous than the pas its 's the Centre Pompidou which, as its name suggests, was put up under a conservative government. Moreover, its architects were an Italian and Englishman: the highly non- ganallic, Broadway-sounding team of Piano prench Rogers. hen actually in overnment, PoliticiWans are commegndably un- paationalistic in dispensing supreme Italian Bog The Opera has just gone to the Bogianckino, and before that went `hlthe German Swiss Lieberman. The ballet s;: gone to Nureyev. Nor has the great Arc de from the Cour de Napoleon up to the Zrlre de Triomphe ever been sacrosanct, as ine of the Anti-pyramidistes suggest. sortie of the additions have been hideous, Trio Marvellous. The view of the Arc de si:IMIThe from the Tuilleries has been Tha bY tower blocks to the right. The p[agnificent and, to pedestrians, lethal' et place de la Concorde has long been brood- Grand e'ver by the gigantic and grotesque Palais built for the Exhibition of theAnd, as You move up from the site of and PY.rarnid, there is an incongruous, but QouellrliablY beautiful structure about which u areh. °cc1' Maupassant, Sardou, the Opera architect'

Prete

tstGtaornier, and others signed a letter Le Temps in 1887. They were e assioned lovers of beauty', they wrote. nl'u_nY had to protest at this 'useless and ,estvrons,

thing which would not be put

2(1 ell in Tower? 'they America'. What if it stayed up L.

T tile), demanded — of the Eiffel