Restoration of the Rohan amphitheater at the Louvre School
Global design mission, creation of furniture and lighting supports for the amphitheater and reception hall for the restoration of the Rohan wing completed in 2014. • Client: École du Louvre / OPPIC • Collaboration with the agency BE Dufaÿ architects
The Louvre School is a French higher education establishment created in 1882 under the Ministry of Culture. It provides education in art history, archeology, epigraphy, history of civilizations, anthropology and museology.
The Rohan Wing is the part frequented by all types of audiences of this prestigious historic establishment. It is located in the Carrousel du Louvre, rue de Rivoli Paris where the foundations of the Louvre and the inverted Louvre pyramid adjoin the shopping arcade.
Its 600-seat circular amphitheater is equipped with the best visual communication technologies to support this high-level education.
The study of its restoration was preceded by a consultation of all users of the site: professionals, students, teachers, who enriched its program with multiple areas of intervention to which the team responded with its specialists in lighting, acoustics. , colors, signage, environment, accessibility, with whom I collaborated in all stages of this transformation, from design to monitoring the work.
To meet different uses: classrooms, conferences, exams, reception rooms and highlight its shape and its concentric function, the design is particularly attached to the design of the workstation for students or listeners. The study responds to a need expressed before this study by the students to facilitate manual or laptop note taking. Each seat is equipped with an individual desk pad illuminated by an integrated lacquered steel reading light, a charger is available to students on each row.
This concept seeks to offer individual comfort associated with collective perception. The principle of this furniture clears the visual space and creates a more friendly relationship between listeners and speakers. He emphasizes and uses the form and the concentric function of this amphitheater by the design of hanging shelves, which follow the concentric circles of the amphitheater. In the reception hall, the sliding bench in the reception hall underlines the curved wall of the amphitheater from the entrance, the reception desks take up the wood and the under hand. He welcomes students during intercourse.
New wood material developed for this furniture
This furniture is made of “curved beech mutilpli”, a wood technique that I had designed as part of the IRO study, in collaboration with ENSAM in Cluny.
Design and heritage
Its design seen as a whole, punctuates and identifies this place by its 600 reading lights and refers to the shape of ancient amphitheatres. The color and material palette has been defined in accordance with the site and the mission entrusted by the Louvre School to Étienne Dufaÿ, architect. The Reception Hall is a place in the basement, lit as in broad daylight, while the amphitheater is designed darker, punctuated by its reading lights, to develop an atmosphere of concentration.
