France plans $800 million makeover for the Louvre, Mona Lisa’s overcrowded home

Paris — It is the most visited museum in the world, but management, staff and visitors agree the iconic Louvre in Paris — the home of Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa — is in need of some serious TLC.

“We have problems with the building,” Louvre Museum director Laurence des Cars acknowledged to CBS News. She said the issues are partly due to age, as the palace that houses the museum was initially constructed in the early 13th century.

“It’s nine centuries of history, at the heart of Paris and at the heart of the history of France,” said des Cars.

But it’s also an issue of upkeep. The last major renovation of the museum was more than three decades ago, when renowned architect I.M. Pei’s now-iconic glass pyramid was added to serve as the main entrance.

When that entrance was inaugurated in 1989, however, the architects were planning for about 4 million visitors per year. Last year, the Louvre drew 9 million people, and officials hope to see that annual footfall rise to 12 million in the years ahead.

To allow for that increase, French President Emmanuel Macron last month announced an ambitious 10-year plan to refurbish and expand the museum. The plans include establishing a new entrance on the east side of the building, to help manage the flow of visitors.

It will become the main entrance, as the pyramid is simply too small to cope with the current number of visitors, let alone the anticipated increase. The access point is small, space below it is limited, and in the summer it gets very hot under all the glass. The Louvre Pyramid will continue to be a visitor access point, however.

The new entrance will open onto the museum’s eastern courtyard, the Cour Carrée, and the plan is to expand downwards, building new galleries underneath it. One of those galleries has been earmarked as a new home for the Louvre’s most famous piece, the Mona Lisa.

If you ask the people standing in line outside the museum what they’re most looking forward to seeing, the vast majority will reply “the Mona Lisa.”

Carlos from San Diego didn’t even hesitate: “I always wanted to see it, ever since I was little,” he told CBS News. “I’m a big fan and this is one of the things that I look forward to.”

“You can never get enough of it,” said Ella, visiting from Canada, who had already been to the Louvre on several previous visits to Paris.

But once inside the room where Mona Lisa currently lives, her global allure means crowds jostling to catch a glimpse of her mysterious face. The painting’s relatively small size often comes as a shock to visitors, some of whom are left using the zoom function on their smartphone cameras to get a closer look.

Da Vinci’s masterpiece is in the Salle des États, the largest room in the Louvre. It is also home to major works by the Venetian masters Titian, Tintoretto, and Veronese, which often go ignored. The remarkable piece, The Wedding Feast at Cana, by Veronese, fills the back wall, facing the Mona Lisa. But visitors often walk straight past it without even seeing it.

“She’s a sort of universal masterpiece,” says des Cars. “People want to spend time with her, and that’s okay. And we need to organize that. But the Louvre is filled with 1,000 Mona Lisas.”

She says one of the objectives of the renovation is to improve visitor flow, so that people can find the collections they most want to see more easily “and also discover the wonders of the Louvre”.

Des Cars believes the new main entrance will also link the museum to the city around it in a more concrete way. “The Pyramid is a wonderful, wonderful piece of architecture,” she says. “But it is a bit isolated in Paris, not in direct contact with the city. The eastern entrance will allow us to connect directly to the city, and so we think it’s a perfect balance for this extraordinary building.”

The ambitious refurbishment will take a total of 10 years: Six years for the expansion and another four for vital repairs to the building and upgrades to outdated technical installations. The security system will also be updated to accommodate the ever-increasing numbers who pass through the museum’s doors.

The project is expected to cost around $800 million. Macron promised that French taxpayers would not have to foot the bill – although government funds will cover the $10 million cost of the initial surveys and plans.

To help pay for all the work, ticket pricing will change — and visitors from outside the European Union will have to pay more from next year. French and European taxes help fund public cultural institutions, so the argument is that they are already paying on top of the entry ticket, unlike visitors from farther afield.

“It’s not to discourage international tourism or to punish anyone, but it’s the reality of the economy,” said des Cars.

The Louvre has also launched a fundraising drive, hoping the museum’s stature will open purse strings around the world, so that it can continue to hold on to its number one spot, while adapting to the times.