Slideshow feature: these images by French photographer Julien Lanoo document the opening week of the Louvre Lens, the Musée du Louvre's new sister gallery designed by Japanese architects SANAA and New York studio Imrey Culbert.
The museum features a 360-metre-long chain of cuboidal glass and aluminium galleries that house a permanent collection as well as temporary exhibitions and art from the local neighbourhood. Located in Lens, northern France, the building opened to the public last week. Find out more about the Louvre Lens in our earlier story.
See more photography by Julien Lanoo on Dezeen or by visiting his website.
Yet ANOTHER glass box(es).
Better a glass box than a computer-generated blob.
This is actually a computer-generated glass box.
Sorry but it still looks like a warehouse.
That's the point. And I still find it stunning and beautiful.
A very elegant warehouse.
If this is what warehouses look like in your city I need to move there.
The most depressing-looking garden ever.
Nice, but I am a bit skeptical of a kind of cut/paste architecture. I wonder how this can be contextual and I cannot stop thinking of Nishizawa’s sculpture museum. That was something different, but with similar sensibilities.
Why should it need to be contextual? The idea that architecture needs context to morally validate it just isn’t true. Of course, sometimes context is everything but in other cases it really isn’t that interesting.
So it seems the apocalypse came a bit early for the landscape architecture design. I love it.
They must have spent loads of hours designing this (sarcasm).
Dezeen = the new Elle Decor.
Forget the forms and materials – it’s all about light.
This is so cold, it looks like a temporary airport terminal. Come on, Louvre? I can’t see how people feel good to see an exibition there. These guys have the same approach whether it’s a museum in Japan, France or Switzerland. It’s not a good way to work.
Big disappointment from SANAA. Can they move on already? We are bored.
Actually, I think it’s more like they’re refining their aesthetics and design sensibilities with each project. Why move on from architectural values that they believe in?
The audience is bored :)
Phillip Johnson’s Crystal Cathedral in southern California is marvellous. This glass building does not begin to rise to the level of marvellous. Pedestrian minimalist glass like the compositions of minimalist composer Phillip Glass. “There is no there, there”.
The Crystal Cathedral is one of the tackiest buildings ever built. This is far more tasteful.
Matt,
Let's agree to disagree. It's a difference of opinion that makes for horse racing.
The building is a bit TOO cold but it will get better as soon as the garden is finally planted, I guess.