05/06: Maintenance of the Louvre & Tuileries Gardens
Category: Weeks 23-26
Posted by: troachadmin
The responsibility for the building of the Louvre and the associated Tuileries Garden is shared by several architects. The Architecte en Chef des Monuments Historiques (ACMH), Michel Goutal, is responsible for larger projects. The Service Départemental de l'Architecture et du Patrimoine (SDAP) of Paris is responsible for smaller projects and repair/maintenance-type projects. There is a resident building architect who oversees and coordinates the work of others, along with in-house maintenance crews.
One of the recent efforts of the ACMH was to select the best materials and methods to clean the facades for the next 10-30 years. This effort included the scientific expertise of the Laboratoire de Recherche des Monuments Historiques (LRMH, see Week 17). M. Goutal explained to me that several cleaning protocols were selected, depending on the location of the facade and the type of pollutants. For example, the area along Rue du Rivoli is heavily exposed to vehicle exhaust. Most of the vehicles in France run on diesel fuel. Those facades need a treatment that works best on the particulates deposited from diesel fuels. The court facades where there is little vehicular traffic are exposed to pollutants more associated with rain, etc, and cleaning protocols will need to be applied to these areas less frequently than on the facades adjacent to the streets. The studies found about four different conditions in all. Cleaning tests were finishing up during my visit; I hope they will be published in Monument, the journal of the Centre des Monuments Historiques, or other publications.
Cleaning tests on the south facade, adjacent to the Seine.
The SDAP shared with me two projects they were working on. The first was a children's garden within the Tuileries that was under construction. The second involved selecting a roofing contractor for a contract similiar to IDIQ (indefinite deliverable indefinite quantities) contracts in the USA. IDIQ contracts are typically not for a specific project, but rather are a means for an Owner to obtain competitive bids and have a team of people ready and available to work on smaller projects. Typically the IDIQ contracts have a maximum dollar or euro amount. Like in America, the contractors are given pre-bid tours of buildings or potential work areas -- and in this case, I benefited from a pre-bid tour of the Louvre roof for the contractors to help them better understand the issues they might encounter over the upcoming time period of the IDIQ.
The complicated roof of the Louvre includes slate, metal (lead roofing and flashing), skylights and decorative sculptures.
The court Visconti is currently under construction on the south side of the Louvre to create new gallery space for the Islamic Art collection.
Every two weeks or monthly, the Louvre architect/project manager leads a coordination meeting with the ACMH, SDAP, and any other active design team members, to review the status of the long list of projects currently in design or in construction. It is also in this meeting that any new problems observed in the field, such as cracked balcony edges. This kind of coordination and tracking meeting is essential to the management of a facility as immense as the Louvre and its associated gardens and courts.
Conservators talk with LRMH stone scientists, who are being asked to identify the source quarry for this statue at the Louvre. The Louvre is closed to the public on Tuesdays to facilitate conservation work on the artwork and the building.
With a building as large and complex as the Louvre, how are its occupants, its irreplaceable objects, and the building protected against fire? How is a 200-meter long gallery protected when architecturally it is impossible to add fire barrier walls, even hidden ones? One way: to provide an on-site fire department, and station a crew of fire fighters throughout the building at all times!
One of the recent efforts of the ACMH was to select the best materials and methods to clean the facades for the next 10-30 years. This effort included the scientific expertise of the Laboratoire de Recherche des Monuments Historiques (LRMH, see Week 17). M. Goutal explained to me that several cleaning protocols were selected, depending on the location of the facade and the type of pollutants. For example, the area along Rue du Rivoli is heavily exposed to vehicle exhaust. Most of the vehicles in France run on diesel fuel. Those facades need a treatment that works best on the particulates deposited from diesel fuels. The court facades where there is little vehicular traffic are exposed to pollutants more associated with rain, etc, and cleaning protocols will need to be applied to these areas less frequently than on the facades adjacent to the streets. The studies found about four different conditions in all. Cleaning tests were finishing up during my visit; I hope they will be published in Monument, the journal of the Centre des Monuments Historiques, or other publications.
Cleaning tests on the south facade, adjacent to the Seine.
The SDAP shared with me two projects they were working on. The first was a children's garden within the Tuileries that was under construction. The second involved selecting a roofing contractor for a contract similiar to IDIQ (indefinite deliverable indefinite quantities) contracts in the USA. IDIQ contracts are typically not for a specific project, but rather are a means for an Owner to obtain competitive bids and have a team of people ready and available to work on smaller projects. Typically the IDIQ contracts have a maximum dollar or euro amount. Like in America, the contractors are given pre-bid tours of buildings or potential work areas -- and in this case, I benefited from a pre-bid tour of the Louvre roof for the contractors to help them better understand the issues they might encounter over the upcoming time period of the IDIQ.
The complicated roof of the Louvre includes slate, metal (lead roofing and flashing), skylights and decorative sculptures.
The court Visconti is currently under construction on the south side of the Louvre to create new gallery space for the Islamic Art collection.
Every two weeks or monthly, the Louvre architect/project manager leads a coordination meeting with the ACMH, SDAP, and any other active design team members, to review the status of the long list of projects currently in design or in construction. It is also in this meeting that any new problems observed in the field, such as cracked balcony edges. This kind of coordination and tracking meeting is essential to the management of a facility as immense as the Louvre and its associated gardens and courts.
Conservators talk with LRMH stone scientists, who are being asked to identify the source quarry for this statue at the Louvre. The Louvre is closed to the public on Tuesdays to facilitate conservation work on the artwork and the building.
With a building as large and complex as the Louvre, how are its occupants, its irreplaceable objects, and the building protected against fire? How is a 200-meter long gallery protected when architecturally it is impossible to add fire barrier walls, even hidden ones? One way: to provide an on-site fire department, and station a crew of fire fighters throughout the building at all times!
