Contests

New Louvre Entrance Design Competition Brief

The new Louvre entrance aims to provide access for ~30,000 visitors per day via the museum’s eastern side. The project also aims to reconnect the Louvre Museum to the surrounding city by redeveloping the areas around the Sully quadrilateral; including the ditches, side gardens, Rue de l’Amiral de Coligny, and Place du Louvre. This area is shown within the dotted orange line below.

Important Dates:
Registration deadline: 1 December 2025 (Register via the button below)
Submission deadline: 8 February 2026
Winners announced: 1 March 2026

Fees and Prizes:

Entering the contest is free. A shortlist will be selected by jury. Shortlisted entries will be displayed on Instagram and ranked based on number of likes received. First place will receive a prize of €250, second place will receive €100, and third place will receive €50.

Rules:

Images will be submitted digitally. Two to five images may be submitted. It is recommended to submit a bird’s eye or orthographic view, plan, and elevation; though this is not a hard requirement. It is recommended to submit images optimized for Instagram in either a 1:1 or 16:9 landscape ratio.

A short description may accompany the images, but is not required. Should a contestant wish to include a description, it is recommended to keep it under 300 words considering it will be shared on Instagram.

AI may be used to render drawings. However, obvious AI or noticeable AI hallucinations will significantly lower the chance of being shortlisted. It is prohibited to use AI in any other capacity.

Participants may not publish nor share their drawings online until the winners have been announced. Once the contest winners have been announced, participants are free to publish and share their drawings as they see fit.

Questions and Answers:

Question 1:
Is the expectation that contestants may delicately add an addition to the existing east façade, assuming they work very hard on the context?

Answer 1:
How the new entrance is designed really is open, though naturally it makes sense to respect and preserve Perrault’s colonnade. The new entrance could be a careful addition to the existing east façade, it could be a below ground entrance, it could be enclosing the Cour Carrée, or perhaps something different.

For more context, here is the Louvre’s official competition notice. Please note the ITA’s competition is a counterproposal competition and is in no way affiliated with the Louvre’s official contest.
https://www.francemarches.com/appel-offre/3boamp2573199-2025-concours-international-architecture
Here is also an announcement of the firms selected for the second round that also includes some context.
https://presse.louvre.fr/louvre-nouvelle-renaissance-cinq-groupements-retenus-pour-le-concours-international-darchitecture/