TÍTULO

Islamic Arts - Louvre Museum - Paris France

After the pyramid of IM Pei, the Louvre Museum in Paris won the New Space of Islamic Arts, the three-dimensional structure of the roof made up of a triangular mobile mesh of 2,350 pieces, formed by two layers of polished golden aluminum mesh On the outside and silver in the interior, covered by 1,806 pieces of extra light isolated glass, of different shapes (triangular and squares) and sizes. Installed in the courtyard Visconti, near the River Seine.

The resulting cavity with light and corrugated metal and glass cover, separated from historical faces at distances ranging from two to four meters, with eight metal pillars receiving the horizontal loads of metal structures, perforated aluminum plates and glass in an area of 4.6 thousand square meters and composed of 2,350 glass triangles that are open for maintenance. The structure was designed by the architects Mario Bellini and Rudy Ricciotti.

Winners of the competition opened in 2002 by the French government, Rudy Ricciotti and Mario Bellini from the outset defended the party to keep the courtyard visible, designing downspouts on two levels of underground - an area that the museum has been successfully exploiting for many years - more ground floor. The excavation, started in 2009, encountered all kinds of negative interfaces with infrastructure services and superstructure of surrounding buildings, and with the water table at eight meters depth.

The large open ones in the center of the courtyard made possible the construction of a space with 6,800 square meters of area, interconnected to other wings of the museum. The lower level accommodates the technical sectors, followed by the extensive exhibition basement, with 2,500 square meters, by two mezzanines, and finally by the slab of the ground floor, coplanar to the patio. The large bedouin-like wavy roof seems to float over the museography, almost touching the ground at one end (its height varies between 1.5 and 8 meters), but without congesting the courtyard or touching its facades.

A \"golden cloud\", it imprints identity to space without disrespecting historical constructions. Designed as a membrane to control and filter the incidence of natural light, it is able to transmit, through layers of different materials, a controlled luminosity, similar to that of Islamic environments - and, as a result, allows visitors to glimpse the façades of the Louvre and the Paris sky. The light reaches all exhibition sectors, including the subsoil, through openings in the periphery of the floor slab.

Because it is an innovative glazed surface, free form and varied slope - not provided for in the building rules of France, the cover had to be submitted to a specific study carried out by several industry bodies, which evaluated its design, strength, capacity Sealing and drainage of rainwater. The three-dimensional structure of the roof consists of a triangular mobile mesh (2,350 pieces in total), formed by two layers of polished aluminum mesh (gold outside and silver in the interior), covered by 1,806 pieces of extra-clear insulated glass of different shapes (Triangles and squares) and sizes.

The next layer is that of the structure, and finally that of the roof, with varied final thickness fined at the edges to reduce the visual impact, in order to meet the structural requirements. Only eight inclined pillars, arranged in irregular geometry, support the whole. The construction of the Department of Islamic Arts and its inauguration, on September 18, 2014, by President François Hollander.