This weekend the Musée du Louvre is set to open the latest
addition to its galleries - the Department of Islamic Arts. Designed by Italian
Mario Bellini and the Frenchman Rudy Ricciotti, the gallery is located in the
Visconti Courtyard and is covered in a luminous golden flying carpet. The two
level gallery is flooded with diffuse natural light and it displays over 3,000
Islamic works, whose origins range from Spain to India and date from the 8th to
the 19th century. The radical new gallery opens officially on September 22 and
it will be the museum's largest intervention since I.M. Pei's pyramids in the
central courtyard.