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The Louvre

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  Location: Paris, France (Continent of Europe)
• Built by: King Phillip II (built the fort), King Francis (turned into a palace), and the National Assembly (government at the time)
• Date built: In the 1100s, the Louvre first served as a fortress, then a royal palace for French kings, and finally an art museum (about 930 years ago)
• How long to build: About 200 years, but built in different stages, starting as a fortress and now a museum
• Size: 652,300 sq ft (60,600 sq m) in total area
• Weight: The glass pyramid weighs about 200 tons (180 m tons)
• The museum started in the 1100s as a fortress to help defend against northern invaders, and after 200 years was abandoned. The first King of France, Phillip II, built it.
• In the mid-1500s, King Francis I constructed the royal fortress palace
• In 1661, King Louis XVI moved his residence to Versailles.
• After the royal residence was closed and moved from the Louvre, artists, writers, poets, and sculptors used the building for their art in the still open parts.
• In 1793, it turned into a museum.
• In 1516, Leonardo Di Vinci came to live at the royal palace at the invitation of King Francis I and had given Di Vinci the title of “The King’s First Painter, Engineer, and Architect.” He died in 1519. Today there are over 130 pieces of his work, including paintings, sculptures, drawings, notebooks, and more.
• The pyramid is 79 ft (21 m) high and is made out of 118 glass triangles, the entrance of which opened in March 1989, symbolically the bicentenary year (200 years after) of the French Revolution.
• It is estimated that it would take a person 100 days at least to see all the works of art.
• There are about 35,000 different exhibits throughout the museum.