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 –
Art in Paris museum, housing many works of art, including the "Mona Lisa" ("La Joconde") and the "Venus de Milo" statue. Known as the Great Louvre, it is the national museum and art gallery of France. Francis I ( a connoisseur of Art), initially started building the Louvre as part of the royal palace erected at a location where a 12th-century fortress of Philip Augustus existed. The palace underwent several additions over the centuries. Finally, after the court moved to Versailles in 1682, a proposal to convert the Louvre into a public museum was mooted in the 18th century, and in 1793 Musée