Until the early 2000s, the museum did not even have a dedicated section on Islam, although its collection of Islamic art is considered one of the finest in the world. Now it has received its own wing, where it is possible to exhibit 3-4 thousand of the 14,000 exhibits belonging to the Louvre and 3,500 works from the collection of the Museum of Decorative Arts at a time.
The new building is located in the Visconti courtyard (55 mx 40 m). With a total area of 6,800 m2, there are 3,800 m2 of exhibition space, divided into two tiers: above ground and underground. During the construction, a pit was dug 12 m deep, and it was extremely difficult to remove thousands of cubic meters of land from the construction site: it was surrounded by a museum on all sides, which worked as usual. Rudy Richotti admits that he dreamed that the Louvre's facade overlooking the Seine would collapse - then things would go much faster.
The new wing is completed with openwork ceilings made of 8,000 steel tubes. They are covered with glass panels and gilded aluminum mesh on the top, and aluminum sun screens and another layer of gilded mesh on the bottom. The curved, wavy surface of the roof is designed to resemble a light blanket, but in reality it weighs 120 tons, its thickness varies from 20 to 120 cm. It rises above ground level to a height of 8 m, and is supported by eight slightly inclined supports. The outer walls of the building are completely glass.
The top tier contains the most ancient exhibits from the 7th - 10th centuries, arranged in free-standing transparent showcases so that visitors can view them from all sides (exhibition design - Renaud Piérard). The lower level presents works of the 11th-19th centuries. The walls there are covered with a 6,35-centimeter layer of black concrete with a smooth, shiny surface.
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