WHY Architecture team proposal selected by the Louvre for 2027 Byzantine and Eastern Christian Art expansion

The Louvre Museum’s recent undertaking to redesign space for its newly formed Department of Byzantine and Eastern Christian Art will be carried out by WHY Architecture and local French partner BGC following the results of an international juried competition.

The project will yield slightly over 59,000 square feet divided into two upper and lower levels. The first being for the Louvre’s Byzantine collection and organized around an over 24,000-square-foot circulatory route connecting the ground floor and mezzanine of the museum's Denon wing; and the second, 'Roman route' presenting the Department of Greek, Etruscan and Roman Antiquities collection in one 35,500-square-foot space for the first time.

The combined WHY-BGC proposal was selected on July 15th of this year, the jury citing its "museographic connections that the project creates between the work" and its "ambitious scenography." 

The pathways approach creates a dialogue between both civilizations and a third space designed conjointly for the Department of Islamic Arts by Rudy Ricciotti, Mario Bellini, and Renaud Piérard.

Laurence des Cars, President and Director of the Louvre, says: "By connecting these collections, the future tours – more fluid, readable, open – will allow our visitors to better grasp the meeting points between different civilizations, the richness of exchanges, influences and connections. At the heart of the Louvre, it is these resonances that are the most precious; they are also the most delicate to bring to life and transmit. This challenge has been brilliantly met by WHY-BGC with an elegant proposal that will perfectly magnify the works and historic spaces of the museum."

WHY is also working on the $70 million reconfiguring and recontextualization of the Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas galleries at the Metropolitan Museum of Art for 2025. BGC, which specializes in scenography, was founded by Giovanna Comana and Iva Berthon Gajšak in Paris in 2009. The Louvre expects the project to be inaugurated in 2027.