Louvre of ground- and lower-ground-level interior spaces topped by a golden, undulating roof (fashioned from almost 9,000 steel tubes that form an interior web) that seems to float within the neo-Classical Visconti Courtyard in the middle of the Louvre's south wing. The galleries, which the museum had initially hoped to open by 2009, represent the first major architectural intervention at the Louvre since the addition of I.M. Pei's glass pyramid in 1989. On 5 February 2015, about one hundred archaeologists, protesting against commercial private involvement to protect France's heritage, blocked Louvre's ticket desks to facilitate free access to the museum. At
Paris in the 17th century lifelong distrust of the Parisians. He moved his Paris residence from the "Palais-Royal" to the more secure Louvre: then, in 1671, he moved the royal residence out of the city to Versailles, and came into Paris as seldom as possible. While he disliked the Parisians, Louis XIV wanted to give Paris a monumental grandeur that would make it the successor to Ancient Rome. The King named Jean-Baptiste Colbert as his new Superintendent of Buildings, and Colbert began an ambitious building program. To make his intention clear Louis XIV organised a carrousel festival in the courtyard of the Tuileries in January