History&Heritage

I.    Work in groups to answer the following questions:
•    Do you often visit museums/ historical sites?
•    What is the role of museums in today’s society?

II.    Read the introduction from a guidebook to the Louver and answer the questions:
1.    What was the aim of the Grand Louver project?
2.    What was it that made people very angry?
3.    What is the purpose of a museum according to Ieoh Ming Pai?

The decision to turn the Louver into the world’s biggest museum was taken in the autumn of 1981 by the French President Francois Mitterand. The challenge lay in turning what was basically a nineteenth-century museum into a modern museum equipped to handle the ever-growing number of people anxious to see and learn about art. The first step towards creating the “Grand Louver” was to create more exhibition space and to reorganize the collections, so that works could be presented both more logically and with more breathing space.