Louvre-Lens
Louvre-Lens, 2015
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 Location within France
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| Established | 2012 |
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| Location | 99 Rue Paul Bert 62300 Lens, France |
| Coordinates | 50°25′50″N 2°48′12″E / 50.43068889°N 2.803302778°E |
| Type | Art museum, Design/Textile Museum, Historic site |
| Visitors | 700,000 the first year |
| Director | Xavier Dectot |
| Curator | Xavier Dectot |
| Architect | SANAA Kazuyo Sejima & Ryue Nishizawa, Tokyo |
| Public transit access | Bus shuttle from gare de Lens |
| Website | Louvre-Lens |
The Louvre-Lens is an art museum located in Lens, Pas-de-Calais, Northern France, approximately 200 kilometers north of Paris. It displays objects from the collections of the Musée du Louvre that are lent to the gallery on a medium- or long-term basis.
"The Louvre-Lens annex reflects the continuing decentralization of French cultural institutions", though the Louvre claims the Lens museum is not a subordinate of the palace in Paris.
Though the museum maintains close institutional links with The Louvre, it is primarily funded by the Nord-Pas-de-Calais region.
A Louvre Abu Dhabi branch is planned to open in late 2016.
In 2003, based on the universality of Le Louvre and on the criticism that French art and culture is immoderately privileged to the Parisian community, the Ministry of Culture and the Louvre Directorate launched a call to the 22 Regions of France in effort to implant a Louvre satellite museum within their region. Only the Nord pas de Calais applied and proposed six cities: Lille, Lens, Valenciennes, Calais, Béthune and Boulogne-sur-Mer. In 2004, after much competition and deliberation, Jean-Pierre Raffarin, then French Prime Minister, officially announced Lens as the recipient city during a visit. It is the second experience of art decentralization in France after the contemporary arts Centre Pompidou-Metz museum in 2001. The project would be realized just over a kilometer away from the Stade Félix-Bollaert football stadium on the 9-9 bis trench, a setting previously accommodating a tandem of abandoned coal mines unproductive since the 1960s, inundated by nature.
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