Exterior view

The Louvre was still a heterogeneous collection of buildings when around 1624 Louis XIII took up the existing plan of enlarging the courtyard He had the Lescot wing doubled. In the middle of the newly extended wing, Jacques Lemercier built the Pavillon de l’Horloge. Its lower three levels followed the style set in 1550, but after 1640 it received an enormous dome over a fourth floor featuring windows flanked by pairs of caryatides designed by Jacques Sarazin. This was an important initiative, it not only honoured the old château, it also consecrated the dome as a Parisian form. A similar design was often chosen to enhance the entrance to châteaux.