Spaces Issue 7

REPORT
France’s National Museum of Modern Art,
a public library, an audiovisual center, a
rooftop restaurant and Internet café.
Needless to say it has succeeded in gaining
high social acceptance.
Pompidou Centre stands as a peculiar
example of an architecture that is aimed
for establishing new trends rather than
following the current mode. People often
change their acceptance once they start to
use the building. This is because true
architecture value is in the quality of space
rather than exterior appearance alone!
‘The magician of light’, Ieoh
Ming Pei’s design for the
new entrance to the Paris
Louvre is as famous as the
museum itself. In designing
this new entrance to the
Louvre Museum that
houses Leonardo’s famous
“Mona Lisa”, he
constructed the neomodern
glass pyramid
famous as the Grand
Louvre Pyramid in the
courtyard of the Louvre.
While the traditionalists argued that it
destroyed the dignity of the Renaissance
courtyard, the progressive admirers hailed
Pei’s seventy-one-foot tall transparent
pyramid as a dazzling synergy of ancient
structure and modern method- a symbolic
link between the old and new- helping
usher the Louvre into the next millennium,
thus making its existence controversial. The
Pyramid deliberately turns the tradition and
concept of pyramid inside out. A pyramid
is supposed to be solid, dark and solitarya
mesmerizing symbol of the exotic world
beyond the streets and cultures of Europe.
In contrast, Pei’s version consists of clear
glass, almost immaterial, a vast skylight
hovering over streams of museum visitors
as they are channelled into the Louvre
galleries through the below-ground
Grand Louvre Pyramid, Paris, France
entrance corridors. (H. H. Arnason, Peter
Kalb (Revising Author), History of
Modern Art). Besides its association of
timelessness and brilliant ingenuity in
lighting an underground space, the
ensemble is a superb example of how new
buildings in old settings do not always have
to accommodate themselves to the style
of their ‘found’ surrounding.
The above examples justify the appetite for
breaking conventions, resulting in a more
fascinating architecture. But these
architectures often stand exuding Salome’s
mysterious beauty.
Salome was a young princess, enchanting
and beautiful. Once, she danced at the
Royal court for her stepfather, King Herod.
Delighted by her performance, he granted
her a wish. Salome demanded for the head
74 NOV-DEC 2005 SPACES