Architecture of the Paris Métro feature stonework, statues and other replica museum pieces, under subtle lighting, which together make the station into an antechamber of the Musée du Louvre. Until the reconstruction of the Louvre in the late 1980s, this station was the closest to the museum's entrance. When I. M. Pei's pyramid was added to the Louvre and made the central entrance at the end of the 1980s, the neighboring metro station Palais-Royal became the closest to the museum entrance; so close, in fact, that a subterranean corridor was constructed leading directly from the museum to the Palais-Royal station, which was renamed "Palais-Royal –
Guardians of the Louvre Guardians of the Louvre After a comics festival in Barcelona, a Japanese artist visits Paris, but falls sick. After feeling a little better, he visits the Louvre. When he feels dizzy, he is transported to what is described as the "space-time of [his] reveries" by a guardian of the Louvre. The guardians are the souls of each piece of art, with the guardian he meets being of the "Winged Victory of Samothrace". On his second day at the Louvre, he looks at the paintings of Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot. While looking at "Recollection of Mortefontaine", he meets Asai Chū, who had worked