Louvre Museum (photo by martinsoler.com)

This enormous building, constructed around 1200 as a fortress and rebuilt in the mid-16th century for use as a royal palace, began its career as a public museum in 1793. As part of Mitterand’s grands projets, the Louvre was revamped in the 1980s with the addition of a 21-metre glass pyramid entrance. Initially deemed a failure, the new design has since won over those who regard consistency as inexcusably boring.

Vast scrums of people puff and pant through the rooms full of paintings, sculptures and antiquities, including the Mona Lisa, Venus de Milo and the Winged Victory (which looks like it’s been dropped and put back together). If the clamour becomes unbearable, your best bet is to pick a period or section of the Louvre and pretend that the rest is somewhere across town.

Hubert Robert’s great work was the realization of the Louvre Museum. A comparison of two of his paintings, the first showing a ruined barrel-vault hall, and the second the Grande Galerie in the Louvre, immediately reveals the source of the idea for the top lighting and the “antique effect” that the newly designed gallery is open to the sky. The sublimity of antique ruins was to be transferred to the real building, and this in turn was to be a treasure chest of art and a worthy successor to its antique models.