The new hall will be located under the Cour Carré. The renovation and revitalization of the Parisian museum will be completed by 2031. The Mona Lisa will have a "special space" at the Louvre in Paris. Emmanuel Macron announced this while presenting the multi-year investment plan to modernize the French museum.
The new room will be located under the Cour Carré and, the president explained, will have separate access from the rest of the art collection housed in the rooms, with conditions that will allow "a different and more peaceful way" to enjoy Leonardo da Vinci's masterpiece . The work will be linked to an ad hoc exhibition "that will adapt to what the Mona Lisa deserves". The renovation and revitalization work of the Parisian museum will be completed by 2031 .
The Mona Lisa will therefore be moved to a special area "accessible independently from the rest of the museum", which will require its own entrance ticket . The goal of the new Louvre, "rethought, restored and enlarged", is to welcome 12 million annual visitors by 2031, compared to the current 9 million. Macron has also evoked, among other things, a diversification of tariffs, with a more expensive ticket for "non-European" visitors starting in 2026.
The renovation, Macron said, will include a new entrance near the Seine and the creation of underground rooms. The president, who spoke in the room where the Mona Lisa is displayed, did not reveal the cost of the project, estimated at hundreds of millions of euros, to modernize the most visited museum in the world, currently plagued by problems of overcrowding and outdated facilities .
Macron's speech comes after the director of the Louvre, Laurence des Cars , expressed concern about the "very precarious condition" of some areas of the museum. The Louvre's last major renovation was in the 1980s, when the famous glass pyramid was inaugurated. Today, the museum no longer meets international standards. Half of the Louvre's budget is funded by the French state, including the salaries of its 2,200 employees.
The other half comes from private funds, including ticket sales, restaurant revenues, retail revenues and special event bookings, as well as sponsors and other partners, including funding from the United Arab Emirates for the use of the Louvre Abu Dhabi brand. Last year, the Louvre received 8.7 million visitors , more than three-quarters of them foreigners, mainly from the United States, China and neighboring Italy, the United Kingdom, Germany and Spain.
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