Building the Louvre: A Richly Illustrated History

by Guillaume Fonkenell

This is the history of a palace, of a museum, and of France : the Louvre, in the heart of Paris, has always been at the heart of French politics. Perhaps no other building has a history so intimately woven into that of a city and a nation. In the thirteenth century, the Louvre castle with its powerful keep was already the symbol of a powerful monarchy. As it slowly lost its defensive role, the austere fortress was transformed into a lavish residence. Meanwhile, the construction of the nearby Tuileries Palace during the Renaissance gave rise to a plan to connect the two palaces, known as the Grand Design.This new vision of grandeur would continue to haunt successive reigns from Louis XIV to Napoleon I. It was not until Napoleon Ill that the Grand Design was finally brought to fruition which only lasted a few years, until the Tuileries Palace was burned down during the uprising known as the Paris Commune. Today the palace of the Louvre, inevitably associated with its glass Pyramid, is still continuing to evolve in order to fulfil and expand its role of museum. Although the Louvre is now one of the world's most highly visited museums, people too often overlook the history of the palace in which it is housed. And yet great architects have worked on the building for over eight hundred years, in an ongoing quest for perfection unmatched anywhere in Europe over such a duration. Author Guillaume Fonkenell has selected ten key periods from this vast creative saga, describing each one through spectacular 3-D renderings of reconstructed views. Designed to be useful and accessible to all, the book provides an overview of the history of the Louvre down through the centuries.

64 pages, Hardcover

Published June 21, 2018

Reviews

[Mary · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was looking for something lighter and faster to read than the glorious but massive Histoire du Louvre (I totally recommend it if you have a 100 bucks to spare), when I remembered I bought this at the Louvre but never picked it up: I’m glad I gave it a chance and I liked it, but I feel some things could have been done better.

First of all, I have no idea why I bought the English version of this book instead of the original French one: now I will never know if the inaccuracies I found (very few, but they’re there) are in the original text too, or if they were accidentally added during the translation process, and it bothers me to no end; anyway, it’s just some typos, nothing major, but I’m a perfectionist when it comes to published works because editors exist for a reason.

On a more positive note, I love the idea of showing how the Louvre and the Tuileries would have looked at specific points in time using 3D renderings of the buildings: it’s very effective and it helps visualising the innumerable changes the palaces went through; I also really liked the selection of photographs, drawings and paintings used to illustrate the state of rooms and facades. However, I wish there were more pictures: I get they’re expensive and they take up a lot of space but come on, it’s a richly illustrated history. Besides, this brings me to the one fault I think this book has: its length.

They wanted to create, and I quote the author, “a simple compass for getting one’s bearings”, but this book was way too short. The Louvre has a long and complex history, so it’s difficult to summarise it efficiently, but this particular summary could have been a bit longer and detailed: just 10 pages more and they could have fitted so much more information, e.g. about the architects and sculptors and decorators, whose names were given in the middle of giant info-dumps, without much context, and so many more pictures. I don’t think it’s a problem per se, I just feel someone who doesn’t know anything about the Louvre (aka the very same people this book was written for) will get a bit lost here and there, because a lot of facts are just mentioned in passing.

All things considered, I think this book is good and informative and it is worth reading, especially because it reminded me of the countless times I visited the museum.