GRAND LOUVRE

GRAND LOUVRE
Paris, France

A comprehensive reorganization and modernization of the Louvre Museum for improved access, new public services and support facilities and a formal reintegration of the museum’s courts and gardens with the surrounding urban area. 1983–95.

Cour Napoléon – (Project Planner and Design Architect): 

Major components include a glazed pyramid as principal entry to the museum set in a three hectare public plaza on the roof of a new underground building which houses the museum’s main reception area, visitor services, a 420-seat auditorium, temporary exhibition galleries, technical support spaces and new connections to the existing wings of the museum. 62,500 m2. $120,000,000. 
Completed 1989.

Richelieu Wing – (Associate Partner in Charge of Design):
Conversion of the former Finance Ministry into 3 floors of exhibition space (36,000 m2). The project involved demolition of six stories of government offices behind the historic facades, conversion of three interior parking lots into day-lit sculpture gardens, creation of a grand escalator court as well as new public circulation and infrastructure. S. Rustow was also the Project Architect and gallery designer for the departments of French and Northern Painting, Oriental Antiquities and Islamic Art. $164,000,000. 
Completed 1993.

Jardins du Carrousel et des Tuileries, Terrace Tuileries – (Coordinating Architect in Charge):
Comprehensive redesign of the 14 hectare complex of historic gardens to create a new axial continuity with the museum’s courts and a more thorough integration with the surrounding urban context.  The project coordinated the work of two landscape design firms, the Voirie de Paris and the engineering designs for a new pedestrian bridge across the Seine.

S. Rustow with Pei Cobb Freed & Partners

  • Founded by inventor, industrialist and philanthropist Peter Cooper in 1859, The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art offers education in art, architecture and engineering, as well as courses in the humanities and social sciences.

  • “My feelings, my desires, my hopes, embrace humanity throughout the world,” Peter Cooper proclaimed in a speech in 1853. He looked forward to a time when, “knowledge shall cover the earth as waters cover the great deep.”

  • From its beginnings, Cooper Union was a unique institution, dedicated to founder Peter Cooper's proposition that education is the key not only to personal prosperity but to civic virtue and harmony.

  • Peter Cooper wanted his graduates to acquire the technical mastery and entrepreneurial skills, enrich their intellects and spark their creativity, and develop a sense of social justice that would translate into action.