Louvre Announces Architects for $1 Billion Transformation
The restoration and expansion will be led by New York’s Selldorf Architects and STUDIOS Architecture Paris, as announced in a press release earlier this week

Louvre, perspective aerial view © STUDIOS Architecture Paris and Selldorf Architects © Vincent Atelier
The $1bn planned resotration and expansion of the Louvre museum in Paris, dubbed ‘Nouvelle Renaissance’ by the French president Emmanuel Macron in 2025, will be led by New York’s Selldorf Architects and STUDIOS Architecture Paris, as announced in a press release earlier this week.
The firms were selected from a five-team shortlist by a jury chaired by Marc Guillaume, Prefect of the Île-de-France Region and Prefect of Paris, and vice-chaired by Christophe Leribault, President-Director of the Louvre Museum.
Following a series of protests, a high-profile heist, ticket scams and other blunders, the project will help transform the museum’s image as well as improving its infrastructural ability to cope with its status as the world’s most visited museum (as reported by The Art Newspaper).
The ‘new Louvre’ will include more entrances and circulation routes, redesigned public spaces and a new gallery for Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa (1503).
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