Louvre-Lens

The Louvre-Lens museum first opened its doors in December 2012. In addition to its primary goal of making the Louvre’s national collections accessible to all, the Louvre-Lens symbolises the Louvre’s regional development strategy and the decentralization policy of the French Ministry of Culture.

In 2003, the Louvre decided to create a new, off-site museum – an ‘away-from-base’ Louvre, where an innovative approach could be developed from scratch. The enthusiasm of the Nord-Pas-de-Calais region (now joined by the Hauts-de-France) and local councillors convinced us that Lens was the ideal location. The inauguration of the Louvre-Lens in 2012 symbolised the fulfilment of a dream: to revitalise the northern French mining basin. It also represented a new responsibility for our age-old museum: committing to a region’s socio-economic revival through culture and education.

The Louvre-Lens was designed by Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa from the Japanese architecture studio Sanaa. The museum’s main exhibition space, the Galerie du Temps, is a 3,000 m² open gallery displaying over 200 artworks on loan from the Louvre in Paris; the masterpieces in question, dating from the 4th millennium BC to the mid-19th century, provide a comprehensive and regularly renewed overview of the history of art and humanity. The Louvre lends more works to the Louvre-Lens than to any other museum: since 2012, the loan of over 3,000 artworks has significantly broadened access to the Paris museum’s collections.

The permanent collections is free for all to see, so don't hesitate to visit. Get all your details here.