Louvre Museum at Night

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This is a photograph of the Louvre Museum in Paris, taken from a position right next to the Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel, which is right between the western extremities of the museum’s two main wings.

In this picture, you can see the Pyramide and the main entrance to the Louvre at its base, just to the right of center in the photo. Surrounding the Pyramide are the different wings of the Louvre; the wing on the left is the newer Richelieu wing (newer in the sense that it is the most recent part of the Louvre Palace to be converted to the museum’s use). Over the past few years, the entire palace has been thorougly cleaned and restored, and new lighting has been installed to make it attractive in the evening. As you can see, it looks like the effort was worth it.

There is a street passing between the camera and the palace. The greenish line of foliage near the center of the photograph is a circular median around which traffic flows; within that median, a glass roof allows sunlight down into the inverted pyramid in the subterranean shopping center that adjoins the Louvre (not visible here, but actually beneath the camera and in front of it, underground).

The palace actually continues a bit off to the left and right, but it is impossible to squeeze it all into a normal photograph, and I was using a wide-angle lens as it was. I have a daytime photograph taken from the same spot, if you’re interested.

You are looking east in the photograph. Behind the camera and somewhat to the left is the axis of the Tuileries Gardens and the Champs-Élysées.

Click directly on the photo to see a smaller version (half this size). Photographed on November 11, 2000.