An ugly year for the Louvre: where does the world's biggest museum go from here?

"Des Cars, who on Tuesday resigned as president of the Louvre, lamented the advanced state of disrepair of the iconic museum's buildings and galleries. The Louvre was overcrowded, she said. Facilities were substandard, technologies hopelessly outdated. Water was coming through the ceilings. Violent temperature swings were damaging artworks. The museum had reached a worrying level of obsolescence."

"Rolling staff strikes, a decade-long ticket scam, an avalanche of ageing infrastructure issues and most glaringly a daring daylight heist of 88m (77m) of crown jewels intervened. Many in the art world think Laurence des Cars survived as long as she did because of Macron's concern for a legacy project."

"Spread across a sprawling 360,000 sq metre site, it is a city within a city. Originally a solid 12th-century fortress, it expanded into a gilded royal palace in the 16th century and, come the French Revolution, became a museum in 1793. Its multilayered architectural fabric contains more than 400 rooms and about 9 miles of corridors."

Laurence des Cars, the first woman to lead the Louvre, resigned as president following a tumultuous year. Initially, she had alerted France's culture minister to severe infrastructure problems including water damage, temperature fluctuations harming artworks, overcrowding, and outdated facilities. President Macron responded by unveiling Louvre: New Renaissance, an ambitious €1 billion renovation initiative. However, subsequent crises undermined her tenure: rolling staff strikes, a decade-long ticket fraud scheme, escalating infrastructure failures, and a significant daylight heist of €88 million in crown jewels. The Louvre, originally a 12th-century fortress converted to a royal palace and then museum in 1793, spans 360,000 square meters with over 400 rooms and nine miles of corridors. Housing 600,000 items with 35,000 on permanent display, the world's largest museum faces fundamental design inadequacies for its current operational demands.

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