[6] The pyramid and the underground lobby beneath it were created because of deficiencies with the Louvre's earlier layout, which could no longer handle the increasing number of visitors on an everyday basis.

Pei’s plan distributes people effectively from the central concourse to myriad destinations within its vast subterranean network... the architectonic framework evokes, at gigantic scale, an ancient atrium of a Pompeiian villa; the treatment of the opening above, with its tracery of engineered castings and cables, evokes the atria of corporate office buildings; the busy movement of people from all directions suggests the concourses of rail termini or international airports.

[10] Writing in The Nation, Alexander Cockburn ridiculed Pei's rationale that the structure would help visitors locate the entrance: "What Pei really meant was that in our unfolding fin de siècle, public institutions need an area (...) where rich people can assemble for cocktail parties, banquets and kindred functions, to which the word 'charity' is attached to satisfy bodies such as the IRS.

"[19] The myth resurfaced in 2003, with the protagonist of the best-selling novel The Da Vinci Code saying: "this pyramid, at President Mitterrand's explicit demand, had been constructed of exactly 666 panes of glass — a bizarre request that had always been a hot topic among conspiracy buffs who claimed 666 was the number of Satan.

Designed for a museum that then attracted 4.5 million visitors a year, the pyramid eventually proved inadequate, as the Louvre's attendance had doubled by 2014.

[23] Pei returned again to the glass pyramid concept at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio, opened in 1995.

[23] In 1839, according to one newspaper account, in ceremonies commemorating the July Revolution of 1830, "The tombs of the Louvre were covered with black hangings and adorned with tricolored flags.

In front and in the middle was erected an expiatory monument of a pyramidal shape, and surmounted by a funeral vase.

"[24] According to the memoirs of Maximilien de Béthune, Duke of Sully, a 20 foot high pyramid, which stood opposite the Louvre with only a street between them, was torn down in 1605 because the Jesuits objected to an inscription on a pillar.