It was against this background that the Louvre administration recently decided to convert the lighting system in the pyramid to metal halide lamps. The result, which went into operation at the end of 2004, is most convincing (see right): the new lighting is of captivating brilliance and daylight assuming character; it has enabled the energy consumption to be reduced and the maintenance cycles to be extended.

For lighting the glass pyramid ERCO originally supplied special spotlight mounting trays fitted with low-voltage 100W halogen lamps - at the time of construction in the late nineteen-eighties this represented the optimum solution (see left). Since then, the field of lamp technology has seen enormous progress: modern metal halide lamps have many times the luminous efficacy and service life of incandescent lamps, they are also suitable for sensitive areas of the architecture thanks to their improved colour rendition and colour stability, and are becoming increasingly easy to operate due to electronic control gear.