Louvre in Revolt

Louvre Museum staff push back against a €700M plan

Author

Yagmur Baydır
January 12, 2026

Dear PA reader,

In Paris, the Louvre Museum faces internal resistance to a proposed €700 million renovation, exposing deeper tensions between cultural ambition, staff welfare, and the pressures of mass tourism. Far from the city, Desert X AlUla 2026 prepares to return this January, once again turning the vast Saudi landscape into an open-air gallery where contemporary art, ancient terrain, and environmental reflection converge. Scale takes on a different form in our roundup of the world’s largest airports in 2026, revealing how terminals have become modern cities in themselves.

Baku steps onto the global stage as Azerbaijan announces its 2026 Global Forum, positioning the city as a meeting point where geopolitics, culture, and the built environment intersect. In Greece, Renzo Piano Building Workshop designs KYKLOS, a new art and cultural centre. And in a gentler counterpoint to megaprojects, LuxeIsland Farm designed by Various Associates, reimagines eco-tourism in Wuhan through bamboo-led, biomimetic structures shaped by animal behavior, landscape, and circular planning

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