The Louvre Museum & Glass Pyramid (Cour Napoleon, Paris)

Why was it built this way? The historic Louvre Palace sits inside the gentle concave bend of the River Seine. In 1989, when French President François Mitterrand commissioned I.M. Pei to redesign the central visitor entrance in the U-shaped Cour Napoleon, Pei erected a 21.6-meter glass-and-steel Pyramid descending into a vast subterranean lobby, and crucially surrounded the base of the pyramid with three large triangular reflecting pools and active fountains.

The Unbroken Feng Shui Thread: In Classical Five-Element Form Theory, a sharp-pointed triangular pyramid belongs to the Fire Element (projecting Fire-Peak Sha and solar heat gain), which clashes with the surrounding classical stone-and-dome palace wings (Earth and Metal elements). Architect I.M. Pei resolved this elemental tension through "Water Balancing Fire" (Hexagram 63, Ji Ji / After Completion): wrapping the pyramid's perimeter in three tranquil water basins and fountains cools the courtyard microclimate, neutralizes the sharp visual and energetic edge of the Fire peak, and guides millions of visitors downward into a wind-sheltered subterranean Bright Hall (Storing Wind and Gathering Qi).