the louvre
I don’t know about you, but when I hear “art museum,” I think of a stuffy old building with walls and walls of paintings on them…usually old paintings that, while probably priceless, are not something I would probably be interested in. I’m sure that is what many art museums look like, but not all of them do. Some art museums are actually very beautiful, like the Louvre, which is both beautiful and unique. Still other museums could only be classified as “different” and even strange!!
The Graz Art Museum is a futuristic-looking building in the heart of Graz, Austria, and this building will definitely catch your eye. The Graz Art Museum is not an old building, but it could be classified as historic…simply because of how it looks. The building is in the heart of Graz, but in reality, it is the Heart of Graz. It may not be called that, but it should be. This relatively “young” building was built in 2003 for the purpose of European Capital of Culture program. The really cool thing about this building is that it was built in the shape of a robotic heart, which makes it stand out from the typical Austrian architecture. The surface of the museum has almost 1000 fluorescent rings which create different patterns at night, and another cool thing is that most of the power energy of the museum comes from solar panels on the roof, making it much more inexpensive to operate.
Whether you’re an art fan or not, you must admit that this museum is, to say the least, interesting. The museum is really a work of art in itself. The round led lights that cover the exterior of the electronic heart shaped building…complete with the arteries…are lit at night to add a futuristic air to the building, displaying 
different shapes and such on different nights. The interior is as futuristic as the exterior. Even the art that is on display is futuristic. The whole place has an almost “outer space” feel to it. I suppose it could be quite different on the inside, and if I were there in person, it might seem entirely like a normal museum, but I rather think not. I think it might be very difficult for this museum to be “normal” in any way.
While I knew that the Louvre was not always a museum, since it was built in the 1500s, and no museums existed then, I never would have guessed that at one time it was a palace. I’m not sure why, it just didn’t occur to me. The construction of the Louvre palace was begun by King Francis I in 1546 on the site of a 12th-century fortress built by King Philip II. King Francis was a great art collector, and the Louvre was to serve as his royal residence. What better place to eventually become a museum than the castle of an art collector.
The work, which was supervised by the architect Pierre Lescot, continued after Francis’ death and into the reigns of kings Henry II and Charles IX. It seems that every successive king wanted to change things or add things to make it their own. Almost every subsequent French monarch extended the Louvre and its grounds, but major additions were made by Louis XIII and Louis XIV in the 17th century. Not only did these kings make major additions, but they also greatly expanded the crown’s art holdings, and Louis XIV acquired the art collection of Charles I of England after his execution in the English Civil War. Then, in 1682, Louis XIV moved his court to Versailles. That was the end of 
the Louvre’s time as the main royal residence, but it would not be closed up and locked away forever.
In the spirit of the Enlightenment, many in France began calling for the public display of the royal collections, believing that it would be a shame not do display them, and that they belonged to the commonwealth of France. The French writer and philosopher, Denis Diderot, was among the first to propose a national art museum for the public. In 1750 King Louis XV temporarily displayed a selection of paintings at the Luxembourg Palace, but it was not until the outbreak of the French Revolution in 1789 that any real progress was made in establishing a permanent museum. The French Revolutionary Government turned the Louvre into a public museum in Paris on August 10, 1793, calling it the Musée Central des Arts in the Grande Galerie of the Louvre. After more than two centuries as a royal palace, seen only by royalty and guests. With artwork and artifacts representative of 11,000 years of human civilization and culture, the art collection housed in the Louvre is one of the richest in the world.
The French army seized art and archaeological items from territory and nations conquered in the Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars, and the collection at the Louvre grew rapidly. Much of this plundered art was returned after Napoleon’s defeat in 1815, however the Louvre’s current Egyptian antiquities collections and other departments owe much to Napoleon’s conquests as well. Two new wings were added in the 19th century. The 
Louvre complex was completed in 1857, during the reign of Napoleon III.
The Grand Louvre, as the museum is officially known, underwent major remodeling in the 1980s and 1990s. Modern museum amenities were added and thousands of square meters of new exhibition space were opened. The Chinese American architect I M Pei built a steel-and-glass pyramid in the center of the Napoleon courtyard. Traditionalists were outraged. In 1993, the 200th anniversary of the museum, a rebuilt wing formerly occupied by the French ministry of finance opened to the public, and for the first time the entire Louvre was used for museum purposes.
