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How the Louvre is Forever Changing | History and Travel Guide
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Mar 27, 2025
Travel back in time to discover the stories behind the Louvre and how to experience it. Get the full course https://www.brighttrip.com/courses/how-it-became-paris Leave a comment with any questions you have and we’ll make sure to include it in a future video. Make sure to subscribe to the channel to learn how to travel smarter ===== FOLLOW ON SOCIAL ===== Bright Trip Newsletter: https://mailchi.mp/brighttrip.com/signup-form Bright Trip on IG: https://www.instagram.com/bright.trip/ Bright Trip on Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/brighttriptravel/ Bright Trip on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BrightTripTeam Bright Trip on Twitter: https://twitter.com/trip_bright ===== ABOUT BRIGHT TRIP ===== Bright Trip creates video-based travel courses to help you travel smarter. From our location courses that visually demystify places like Tokyo, London, Costa Rica, or Cape Town to our skills courses that cover how to travel solo, with kids, or how to document your travels more effectively and efficiently - each course is created by real travelers, like you, and aims to create a community of curious travelers that are eager to travel smarter.
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0:00
As you can see, I am standing in front of a super modern looking glass pyramid
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And this pyramid marks the entrance of Paris' most famous museum, the Louvre
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Now, of course, when it was first announced, the public hated it. And in this last thing, I'm going to talk about what the Louvre is, how it has evolved
0:16
and how this really just marks the latest in a long tradition of renovations
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History and change are what define this very famous castle known as the Louvre
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To understand the Louvre and its relationship with change, you have to go back more than 800 years. Historically, the kings of France have lived
0:33
right across the river here, on the Île de la Cité. That's where you find Notre-Dame and the
0:39
Saint-Chapelle. The Louvre was initially just a military fortress in the 12th century, made to
0:44
defend the city. But as the city grew, the fort began to lose its strategic role. Meanwhile, some
0:50
of the kings wanted a new home that was a bit more protected against revolts. So in the 1500s
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one king turned this fortress into a royal residence. And as monarchs and rulers succeeded each other over the years
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they made changes to the fortress, and soon it started to look more like a palace
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Louis XIV was the one that ended the trend of kings living here when he decided to move out of the Louvre in the 1600s
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so as to move into the Palace of Versailles. But he left his impressive art collection in the Louvre
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The building became an official museum immediately after the French Revolution in the 1700s
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when the new government overthrew the monarchy and decided to open up the art to the public
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More kings and rulers have added art and updates to the Louvre over the years
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Napoleon also put tons of stolen artifacts taken during his conquests here
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And then, of course, he named the whole thing after himself. Though, the reason it doesn't have that name today is because the government changed the name back to the Louvre
1:53
a couple of years after Napoleon fell out of power. But the different rulers didn't just update the interior and the art collection
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Over the years, the entire complex surrounding the original castle grew and expanded and completely changed in shape
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If you look at the Louvre from above, you might notice the structure is shaped sort of like a giant U
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And that's because there's a missing section on the open end of the U
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This missing part was a key aspect that drove the growth of the Louvre and made the enormous castle what it is today Right here where I am right now is where a palace used to stand called the Tuderie and it a completely separate palace from the Louvre
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It was built in the 1500s, and eventually the French king wanted to connect the two
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and thus began a 300-year-long project. They started building new wings to connect the two palaces
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starting with the large, ornate, two-story hall known as the Great Gallery
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You have to understand that the scale of this idea was absolutely unprecedented
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When the Great Gallery was built in 1610, it was the longest building ever built in France at 460 meters
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But in 1871, just a year after the completion of the North Wing that finally closed the entire palace
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the Tudé was burned to the ground during an uprising of the working class that ultimately failed
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Dramatic it was. the government decided that the palace would never be reconstructed and that the Louvre
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will be left open towards the west of Paris and that the only thing left of the Trillerie are the gardens
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So today the Louvre looks like this. It expands over a total of four floors in three main areas
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To the north you have the Richelieu wing. The southern part of the U is the Demon wing
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Both of those were the finishing touches to the palace in 1870
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Joining the two is the Sully Square, which is the original and oldest part of the castle
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including elements of the original medieval fort in the basement. Within those, the artworks are grouped by themes from French paintings
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to ancient Egypt or Islamic art. If you're curious, the Mona Lisa is here
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and it's a lot tinier than I was expecting at least. The grandeur of the Louvre's exterior matches the sheer size of the art collection within it
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And when you've watched as many heist movies as I have, you know, treasures like these need just as much protection as the royal family
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Art like this, the Banksy's, the Basquiats, the Picassos, it's appreciated in value over 12% every year over the last 27 years
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Kings and queens have come and gone. cultures, currencies, empires have all been lost to time
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But art like this still gets passed through generations becoming more and more valuable But for the first time in history even if you not a descendant of King Charles III you can invest in the finest art in the world for a fraction of the price
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Thanks to our new sponsors at Masterworks. They are giving everyday investors just like you
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the ability to invest in art straight from their smartphones. Masterworks has sold over $45 million worth of art to date
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and distributed the proceeds to investors like you. They weren't art market connoisseurs
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and they didn't need to be. Masterworks team of art experts and financial ysts have crunched decades worth of data to buy and sell art at the optimal time to maximize returns
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And they've got the numbers to prove it. Over 840,000 people have joined the platform to date and offerings have sold out within minutes
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But Bright Trip subscribers can now skip the waitlist using the special link in the description
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Since the Tudéry Palace was removed, the vista opened up from the Louvre to the rest of Paris
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This allowed for a better view of something called the historical axis. If you've watched
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our lesson on the Arc de Triomphe, you might remember that we talked about how two arches
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in Paris are aligned, the Arc de Triomphe and one in front of the Louvre. These arches sit on
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an invisible line that runs through Paris known as the historical axis or the royal way. The axis
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follows the path of the sun along a 26 degree angle from which it rises in the east to where
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it sets in the west. Other landmarks fall into this axis, the famous avenue known as Champs-Élysées
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a 3,000 year old obelisk from ancient Egypt, and a super modern arch in the business district of
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Paris. These landmarks actually align with another monument in front of the Louvre, but it's not
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actually the glass pyramid. It's this statue right here of Louis XIV. And it's kind of a funny story
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The architect who was working on this in the 1980s realized that if he placed this right in the
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middle of the courtyard, it actually wouldn't align. And so to respect this historical access
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he placed it right here. Now that the Tuileries Palace wasn't here to block the view, the skew of
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the Louvre became clearly evident. So the architect requested that the statue of Louis XIV be placed next to the pyramid
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so as to honor the historical axis. From here you can see some of the other moments in a row behind the statue This really shows how much thinking went into all of those construction decisions throughout the centuries of Paris history even though each decision incredibly
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was made in a different time period over the centuries. This is like a massive group effort
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Just like each of the monuments that were built over the years at different points, this glass pyramid captures the advanced thinking
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techniques, and materials of its age. It shows a changing palace in a changing city, going from a fortress to a king's home to a museum
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Today, the Louvre has the biggest art and antiques museum in the world
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The galleries themselves are gorgeous, and they host a huge portion of the most famous art pieces you might know
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And this really is one of those museums that you cannot do in one day
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It requires, in my opinion, many, many visits. to even just to get through everything
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From the Mona Lisa to the Venus of Milo, from the raft of the Medusa to the Seated Scribe
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its collection of over 450,000 art pieces covers almost 10,000 years of human history
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With about 400 rooms linked by 14 kilometers of corridors, there's no way a person can see it all in a single visit
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Ideally, you should plan a path that allows you to see the main pieces
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you're most interested in. The museum's website offers a few suggestions of trails to follow that will take you
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through some of its main masterpieces. But, you know, you can always find guided tours
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that you can book online. At the very least, I'd recommend getting the audio guide
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as it will help you appreciate your visit even more. You'll understand kind of what you're looking at
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You should definitely book a ticket online before coming as that would ensure you can get in stress-free
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the museum is open from 9am to 6pm every day except Tuesdays
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Entry is free for anyone under 18, for Europeans under 26, and for everyone on the first Sunday of each month
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Otherwise, there's a reasonably priced entrance fee. Like so much of Paris, the Louvre represents a sort of mishmash of keeping old traditions
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and updating with new innovations. This pyramid right here, next to an old fortress-turned-art-gallery
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is like the perfect example of that. In some ways, change can feel like it's clashing with history
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But sometimes it works and creates an invisible through line between past and present
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