[Un article de The Conversation écrit par Marie-Alix Molinié-Andlauer – Docteure en Géographie politique, culturelle et historique, Sorbonne Université]
10.2 million visitors. In 2018, the Louvre museum has passed the symbolic bar of 10 million admissions, and the next year, it grazes it again with 9.6 million visitors even though the entrance by the pyramid had been designed To accommodate 4.6 million visitors per year. On the same periods, the Musée d'Orsay is experiencing a similar craze, with 3.3 million visitors in 2018 and 3.65 million visitors in 2019. In 2020, the COVVI-19 came to put a stop at this progression. It was not until 2023 to find an influx approaching the pre-Pandemic levels. That year, the Louvre welcomed 8.9 million visitors and Orsay broke its attendance record with 3.9 million admissions.
These figures are a reflection of the communication actions implemented by these museums and by the tourist office of the City of Paris to attract more visitors. But where is the balance point in order not to sink into surfrequents? While museums communicate on the actions implemented to rethink the spaces in order to better accommodate the audiences, in fact, the question of the comfort of visit is often neglected in favor of economic interests.
What limits to museum attendance?
The public establishments are regulated by two main constraints with regard to attendance. On the one hand, the operating burden, which indicates a legal threshold of visitors not to be exceeded to guarantee the safety of the building and the people who occupy it.
On the other hand, the capacity. For cultural institutions, it is written by the Ministry of Culture which suggests not going beyond a visitor for 5 m². This brings the capacity of the Louvre museum to 14,547 visitors (72,735 m2) and from the Musée d'Orsay to 3,371 visitors (16,853 m2). Their daily gauge is fixed at double, because even if there are saturated schedules, it is rare that visitors enter the museum at 9 a.m. to come out at 6 p.m. (the average visit time is 2 hours for the Museum D 'Orsay and 2:30 a.m. for the Louvre museum).
Museums cannot only rest on this encrypted data: they do not translate the experience of the public. The behavior of visitors is a parameter that is difficult to quantify, but it turns out to be ethnographically observable, making it possible to predict the saturation of certain rooms.
In the same museum, some empty rooms, other saturated
At the Louvre museum, the public service knows that a large number of visitors favors the visit to the Denon wing, and more precisely the 1er floor and rooms 700, 702, 703, 705, 710 and 711. The flows are captured and polarized in this wing where the main “louvre masterpieces are concentrated” (The Mona Lisa, the victory of Samothrace And The Venus of Milo) Thus saturating the south of the building, part of the Sully wing which leads to Egyptian antiquities.
For around 80 % of visitors, the Louvre's experience comes down to a few works that focus on only 1/7e exhibition spaces. This characterizes a Louvre in anamorphosis, that is to say a distorted representation of a place, subsequently impacting museum practices. The spaces are saturated by visitors who accumulate experiences of places; they will have do The Louvre or Orsay, while other departments of these museums, which present just as many masterpieces, are almost empty.
An infra-organization makes it possible to “structure” the places: one-way staircase, unrolled band, visit of visit, incentive to shift your visits, etc. These attempts to develop museum space remain symbolic, however: the flows remain condensed in certain places.
Temporary exhibitions victims of their success
For the Musée d'Orsay, the phenomenon of surfrequents is mainly associated with temporary exhibitions. As in the Louvre, the occupation is in anamorphosis with a strong concentration of visitors in the two temporary exhibition spaces located on the ground floor of the museum. These spaces represent approximately ¼ of the total exhibition spaces.
For example, in 2024, the exhibition Paris 1874 welcomed 722,130 visitors over 95 days of opening, or 7,450 visitors per day on average. By reducing the capacity per hour within the exhibition space (2000 m2), we note that it is around 830 visitors/hour, more than double that recommended by the Ministry of Culture (400 visitors/hour).
The comfort of visit is relegated to the background. In temporary exhibitions, spaces are quickly congestion at the slightest significant step (information, cartels, major works). The masses accumulate around the most iconic works and the general eagerness imposes a sustained rhythm of “meeting” with the works. The museum route is experienced to the rhythm of other visitors.
Why such a surface?
The “desire for places” plays a key role in this overflowing. In summary, the desire for places is driven by representations. The reputation and image of an entity have an impact on the territory: they induce a dynamism, create a desire, a desire to appropriate a place and to practice it.
According to my research, digital social networks amplify this phenomenon and become temporary and transient “spaces” between cultural places and their visitors. Museums strengthened these tools during the COVVI-19 to communicate more directly with the audiences and renew their image, increasing their attractiveness. The photos broadcast are those of an emptied museum, often without visitors.
In parallel, visitors also communicate on networks during or after their visit to disseminate a more personal and filter -free experience. These appropriations of the place also create a more important desire for a visit. It is moreover more a desire to “have made” a place more than a discovery this one, an approach which is similar to an accounting logic, a kind of competition where the points would be counted by interposed photographs .
By presenting their museum experiences to their network, these different actors multiply the visibility of the museum. This leads to a sometimes viral communication which escapes the institution and renews practices within museums.
An ambivalent position of museums
Public loyalty is an important point for museum departments, and the diversity of communication channels is used to capture this already conquered audience. Museum virtual experience and experience in situ Soak: the virtual-numerical is no longer just a communication tool, it becomes a visit tool, thus short-circulating the actions implemented by the museums to make a visit pleasant.
Added to this is the budgetary tensions that museums have experienced for several decades. Surferment is therefore to be read in the prism of an economy of cultural institutions, which, by the communication of exhibitions events or popular events, attract visitors, but not only. They attract large groups that seek to benefit from the good reputation of these museums to host private events. This corporate patronage modeled on the American model requires major museums to self -finance up to 67 % for the Musée d'Orsay and the Orangery (2022) and 56 % for the Louvre Museum (2022). This economic model does not necessarily make it possible to innovate to rethink its accessibility in space and time, but to reach a budgetary balance in the current socio-economic context.
However, certain avenues are envisaged to find a balance between viable economy, socio -cultural interest and renewal of museum practices. The Louvre Museum now offers two “nights” with an opening until 9 p.m. Wednesdays and Fridays, against a night at the Orsay Museum in Thursdays (9:45 p.m.). Thus, extending these schedules to other days would make it possible to further smooth the frequentations of museums, especially for a local audience. For the Louvre museum, there is also the idea of depolarizing the entrance to the pyramid, which in 1989 was not designed to absorb such attendance. These new access would also make it possible to rework the link between the Louvre and the city of Paris: the museum would no longer be a fortress in which visitors would enter its center, but a place that would integrate into the city's network.
Until then, advice: if you want to visit the Louvre in tranquility, store your phones and head to less-run rooms, but receiving treasures, like the second floor of the Sully wing (especially impressionist works from room 903), or oriental antiques on the ground floor of the Richelieu wing (rooms 227 to 230).
With an unwavering passion for local news, Christopher leads our editorial team with integrity and dedication. With over 20 years’ experience, he is the backbone of Wouldsayso, ensuring that we stay true to our mission to inform.
