French president Emmanuel Macron has announced that the Mona Lisa will get its own dedicated room inside the Louvre museum, which he said will be renovated and expanded in a major overhaul that will take years to complete, reports The Herald.
The renovation will include a new entrance near the River Seine, to be opened by 2031, and the creation of underground rooms, Mr Macron said in a speech from the Louvre room where the Mona Lisa is displayed.
Mr Macron did not disclose the cost, estimated to run into hundreds of millions of euros, to modernise the most visited museum in the world, which is plagued with overcrowding and outdated facilities.
The Louvre’s latest overhaul dates back to the 1980s, when the iconic glass pyramid was unveiled. However, the museum is not up to international standards anymore.
Louvre Director Laurence des Cars had expressed a series of concerns to culture minister Rachida Dati earlier this month saying the museum is threatened by “obsolescence”.
According to the document first released by French newspaper Le Parisien, Ms des Cars warned about the gradual degradation of the building due to water leaks, temperature variations and other issues “endangering the preservation of artworks”