Paris - Palais du Louvre - Pavillon de l'Horloge 001

The Pavillon de l’Horloge ("Clock Pavilion"), also known as the Pavillon Sully, is a prominent architectural structure located in the center of the western wing of the

Cour Carrée The Cour Carrée (Square Court) is one of the main courtyards of the Louvre Palace in Paris. The wings surrounding it were built gradually, as the walls of the medieval Louvre were progressively demolished in favour of a Renaissance palace. Cons ...

of the

Palais du Louvre The Louvre Palace (french: link=no, Palais du Louvre, ), often referred to simply as the Louvre, is an iconic French palace located on the Right Bank of the Seine in Paris, occupying a vast expanse of land between the Tuileries Gardens and the ...

in Paris. Since the late 19th century, the name Pavillon de l'Horloge has generally been applied to the structure's eastern face, which dates from the 17th century, and the name Pavillon Sully to its western face, which was redecorated in the 1850s as part of

Napoleon III's Louvre expansion The expansion of the Louvre under Napoleon III in the 1850s, known at the time and until the 1980s as the Nouveau Louvre or Louvre de Napoléon III, was an iconic project of the Second French Empire and a centerpiece of its ambitious transforma ...

History

The pavilion was built just north of the older Lescot Wing between 1624 and about 1645, a protracted process because of the difficulties faced by France in the late 1620s and 1630s. The structure and its iconic square-domed roof (AKA The nob) were designed by architect

Jacques Lemercier Jacques Lemercier (c. 1585 in Pontoise – 13 January 1654 in Paris) was a French architect and engineer, one of the influential trio that included Louis Le Vau and François Mansart who formed the classicizing French Baroque manner, drawing ...

, who was selected in a competition in 1624. On 1 September 1794, a

semaphore Semaphore (; ) is the use of an apparatus to create a visual signal transmitted over distance. A semaphore can be performed with devices including: fire, lights, flags, sunlight, and moving arms. Semaphores can be used for telegraphy when arra ...

or of the type recently invented by

Claude Chappe Claude Chappe (; 25 December 1763 – 23 January 1805) was a French inventor who in 1792 demonstrated a practical semaphore system that eventually spanned all of France. His system consisted of a series of towers, each within line of sight of ...

was installed at the top of the Pavilion. It remained there until 1806, when it was removed for aesthetic and safety reasons by the Louvre's architect

Pierre-François-Léonard Fontaine Pierre-François-Léonard Fontaine (; 20 September 1762 – 10 October 1853) was a neoclassical French architect, interior decorator and designer. Life and work Starting in 1794 Fontaine worked in such close partnership with Charles Percier, ...

. In the early 19th century, a clock (french: link=no, horloge) was placed on the

attic An attic (sometimes referred to as a '' loft'') is a space found directly below the pitched roof of a house or other building; an attic may also be called a ''sky parlor'' or a garret. Because attics fill the space between the ceiling of the ...

level, giving the pavilion its current name. The western façade was comprehensively remodeled by

Hector Lefuel Hector-Martin Lefuel (14 November 1810 – 31 December 1880) was a French architect, best known for his work on the Palais du Louvre, including Napoleon III's Louvre expansion and the reconstruction of the Pavillon de Flore. Biography He was ...

in the 1850s during the

Second Empire Second Empire may refer to: * Second British Empire, used by some historians to describe the British Empire after 1783 * Second Bulgarian Empire (1185–1396) * Second French Empire (1852–1870) ** Second Empire architecture, an architectural styl ...

. that is when the name of Pavillon Sully (after Maximilien de Béthune, duc de Sully) was given to it. Lefuel also rebuilt the structure's two iconic chimneys, which had been demolished in the early 19th century.

Interior

The underground level or was first designed in the 1930s by Louvre architect Albert Ferran as part of a broader plan to create a seamless museum itinerary on the ground level of the Cour Carrée. It was remade in the 1980s as part of the

Grand Louvre The Grand Louvre refers to the decade-long project initiated by French President François Mitterrand in 1981 of expanding and remodeling the Louvre – both the building and the museum – by moving the French Finance Ministry, which had been ...

project, under which it also connects the underground spaces beneath the

Louvre Pyramid The Louvre Pyramid (Pyramide du Louvre) is a large glass and metal structure designed by the Chinese-American architect I. M. Pei. The pyramid is in the main courtyard ( Cour Napoléon) of the Louvre Palace in Paris, surrounded by three smalle ...

with the newly established rooms preserving the remains of the

Medieval Louvre The Louvre Castle (french: Château fort du Louvre), also known as the Medieval Louvre (french: Louvre médiéval, links=no), was a castle (french: château fort, links=no) built by King Philip II of France on the right bank of the Seine, to rei ...

. On the first floor above the passageway are a corridor linking the two monumental staircases that flank the Pavilion and, facing the Cour Napoléon, a large room that was fitted in the 1650s to be the Louvre Palace Chapel. This room, the , used to be of double height but was vertically partitioned in the 18th century to create space in the

. A 1915 project to restore the double height was left unimplemented. The room was used for exhibition of ancient bronze objects, then for temporary exhibitions from the 1990s to the 2010s, and since July 2016 has been dedicated to the history of the Louvre's collections. On its entrance door is a

wrought iron Wrought iron is an iron alloy with a very low carbon content (less than 0.08%) in contrast to that of cast iron (2.1% to 4%). It is a semi-fused mass of iron with fibrous slag Inclusion (mineral), inclusions (up to 2% by weight), which give it a ...

gate originally from the

Château de Maisons The Château de Maisons (now Château de Maisons-Laffitte), designed by François Mansart from 1630 to 1651, is a prime example of French baroque architecture and a reference point in the history of French architecture. The château is located in M ...

, installed there in 1819 by architect Pierre Fontaine. On the second floor or attic, the main room above the former chapel has been devoted since 2016 to information about new developments at the Louvre and its two satellites in Lens, Northern France and Abu Dhabi, UAE. The third floor used to be a single large room extending all the way to the roof. From its completion in 1644 it was used to store furniture. In the 1850s,

created a

skylight A skylight (sometimes called a rooflight) is a light-permitting structure or window, usually made of transparent or translucent glass, that forms all or part of the roof space of a building for daylighting and ventilation purposes. History Open ...

to bring light from the ceiling. This room was remodeled by Louvre architect around 1920, and the Louvre's pioneering collection of

Islamic art Islamic art is a part of Islamic culture and encompasses the visual arts produced since the 7th century CE by people who lived within territories inhabited or ruled by Muslim populations. Referring to characteristic traditions across a wide ra ...

was displayed there from June 1922. It was then known as , as a tribute to businessman Alphonse Delort de Gléon (1843–1899) and his wife Marie–Augustine (1852–1911), who bequeathed Islamic art pieces that joined the Louvre's collection in 1912. This room, however, was partitioned in 1979 to create reserve space for the Louvre's paintings collection, and further partitioned in the 2000s so that it now has four levels inside. The timber work supporting the roof is largely original from the 17th century. File:Debucourt-Louvre-facade-seen-from-rue-Fromenteau.jpg, Lemercier's western facade from the former rue Fromenteau, late 18th century File:Pavillon Sully Louvre 2007 06 23.jpg, Western facade of the Pavillon Sully, redesigned by

File:Louvre covered passage, 5 April 2015.jpg, Covered passageway or of the Pavillon Sully

History

Interior

See also

Notes

Further reading