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 16th century succeeded by his cousin, Francis I, who was much more interested in the city. Francis gradually moved closer to Paris, first to the Palace of Fontainebleau, then to Saint-Germain-en-Laye, then to the Chateau de Madrid, an enormous hunting lodge that he built in the Bois de Boulogne. Finally, on March 15, 1528, he declared his intention to live in Paris. Since the old royal palace on the Île-de-la-Cité was occupied by the Parlement of Paris, he announced that he would live in the old fortress of the Louvre. While the Louvre was being reconstructed to his tastes, Francis I resided