Carrousel du Louvre

The Carrousel du Louvre is part of the Grand Louvre, the modernisation of the museum for which I. M. Pei was named architect in July 1983. It belongs to the second phase, which also took in the conversion of the Richelieu Wing and the inverted pyramid. Designed by Pei's firm, it was built by other teams. The museum holds a model of the scheme for the area, made around 1988-1990 by the model maker Form-Tecno after the design of Pei and Michel Macary, one of the associate architects of that phase.

The galleries were fitted out after the archaeological excavations carried out in the Carrousel garden in 1989 and 1990, and the centre opened in 1993. Since 1996 the Comédie-Française has had its third auditorium there, the Studio-Théâtre.

The gallery runs beneath the museum and the Carrousel garden. Its 55,000 m² include shops and restaurants, and the inverted pyramid lights its centre.

In 2016 Jean-Michel Wilmotte's firm renovated the centre. Its crystal façade, the centre's new entrance, puts together ten horizontal pyramids drawn from the structure of Pei's work, as a fragmented echo of the inverted pyramid.

It houses shops and restaurants, the Salles du Carrousel, where fairs and events are held, the Studio-Théâtre of the Comédie-Française and the École du Louvre's Amphithéâtre Rohan, which seats 600.

An underground passage links the Carrousel with the nearest metro station; it can also be entered from 99 rue de Rivoli. A museum entrance, open to visitors with a ticket, groups and members, is in the galleries, in front of the inverted pyramid.