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 Antoine Coysevox. Girardon created a monumental statue of Louis XIV on horseback for the center of Place Louis-la-Grand (now Place Vendôme). The statue was pulled down and destroyed during the Revolution, but the original model is on display in the Louvre. Coysevox made a heroic statue of Louis XIV as Fame for the Chateau of Marly (now in the Tuileries Gardens)) and the majestic funeral monuments for Colbert (now in the church of Saint-Eustache); for Andre le Nôtre and Racine (in the Church of Saint-Roch) and for Cardinal Mazarin (in the Louvre). Paris in the 17th century Paris in the