LernerMedia Places: Paris — Media with a message is modern grail quest

Inverted pyramids, Louvre Carrousel, Paris France, Dec. 2008. LernerMedia

[Editor's note: This posted was updated in December 2010 to include reference to an Apple store located in the complex described below.]

In the closing scene of the movie The Da Vinci Code, Tom Hanks’ character peers downward from atop an inverted glass pyramid, located near the entrance to the Louvre. To a soaring musical score, the camera’s eye then spirals downward toward a climatic revelation of final resting place of the “Holy Grail.” Located in the circular traffic divider in the Pl. du Carrousel, the inverted pyramid is actually an architectural skylight. Paired with a smaller upright solid pyramid located below, the inverse combination creates a communal space in the atrium of the underground Carrousel shopping annex to the Louvre.  The inverted pyramid also sheds light on surrounding sites of modern religious pilgrimage, gleaming multi-level Virgin and Apple stores. Ron Howard’s cinematic artistry, capping Dan Brown’s clever novel, also creates a fictional point of pilgrimage, seemingly the goal of thousands of modern mythical quests.

Fortunate to work in Paris and frequently visit the Louvre, I can personally assure everyone that all that lies in the floor underneath the pyramids is a parking garage. Moreover, contrary to the claims made in the movie, the inverted pyramids are actually several hundred yards off the rose line running north and south through Paris marked by golden “Arago” discs. With some free time one afternoon,, I took some notes and pictures of people reacting to the space. Many tourists and shoppers stopped to snap group pictures, some touched the pyramids, others carried on multi-lingual arguments over the  ”facts” presented in the book or movie. Two visitors, literally assuming the role of pilgrims, actually stopped to  kneel and pray.

It was maddeningly ridiculous.

What made it “maddeningly ridiculous” over  “simply pop culture ridiculous” was that off in a corner of the atrium stood an almost totally ignored maze of storyboard panels put up by UNICEF and Médecins Sans Frontières. The panels and picture documented the continuing plights of hungry children and AIDS orphans that offer real — not fictional — challenges to the heart and mind. Of the perhaps five hundred people to stopped to examine the pyramids, just three elderly people took time to stop and read the  placards.

It would be easy to assign a communal blame to the deepening abyss of shallow celebrity worship in modern society. However, what I observed was also a media and design failure. The message on the panels was profound, but the media carrying the message could not effectively connect with people in that time and place. If the panels had been repositioned so that they created a maze around the pyramids,  a mass of minds seemingly open to movie mysticism might have dwelled, even if only for a moment, on real-world problems. Just as the inverted pyramid provides light to the atrium (at least when not covered to keep off pesky tourists), more effective use of space and media might have created a spark of resolve in the pilgrims and even casual shoppers) to enter into a new quest dedicated to bringing light into the lives of others.

What better symbolism of the fact that even the best-intentioned messages and causes need a spotlight of exposure. Engaging presentation — whether manifest in the crispness of lean journalistic prose, persuasiveness of editorial argument,  or soaring rhetoric and insightfulness of columnists –  is critical to the success of even the most profound message.

Cheers,

Lee

Paris. December, 2008