( CNN ) -- Seventy-nine-year-old Henri Wosniak had only ever seen France 's beloved revolutionary painting -- `` Liberty Leading the People '' -- on postage stamps . Then the real thing turned up on his doorstep . For 35 years , Wosniak worked one-meter underground in one of the coal mines dotted across the small town of Lens , in northern France . Two decades ago , the last mine closed , and the industrial city fell into a grim economic slump of `` closed shops , abandoned houses , angry residents and a boarded up cinema . '' `` We became a ghost town , '' said regional president Daniel Percheron , of a city that had an unemployment rate three times the national average . Then last year , `` Liberty Leading the People '' came to town . Or to be more precise , the Louvre 's sister gallery -- called none other than Louvre-Lens -- opened her gleaming doors to the public . Boasting hundreds of masterpieces on loan from the Louvre in Paris , the slick €150 million ( $ 204 million ) museum has become an unlikely art haven , sitting in the shadow of Lens ' looming slag heaps . For retired miner Wosniak , the biggest thrill was seeing the gallery 's star attraction -- Eugene Delacroix 's `` Liberty Leading the People '' -- a painting commemorating the 1830 revolution and familiar to everyone in France . `` I had seen it on stamps , '' he says , animatedly making the small shape with his hands . `` And here it is , '' he adds , waving at the grand artwork surrounded by a throng of admirers . Happy Birthday . This week marks the first anniversary of Louvre-Lens , and already 750,000 people have visited the sleek glass and polished aluminum building , 200 kilometers north of Paris . It 's a very different museum to its glamorous Parisian sister . While the Louvre -- which attracts over 9 million visitors each year -- sits on the banks of the River Seine and overlooks elegant Tuileries Gardens , Lens rests atop a disused coalmine , with views of the local football stadium . That 's not to say Lens is n't a spectacular building in itself . Designed by Japanese architect firm Sanaa , the minimalist museum is remarkable in that it does n't separate artworks according to style or era . Instead , the pieces -- spanning Greek sculpture to 19th century French painting -- are showcased together in one long light-filled gallery . Indeed , part of the reason the museum was built , was to display some of the hundreds of thousands of artworks in storage deep under the Louvre in Paris . `` The Louvre has more than 460,000 works of art , and only presents around 40,000 , '' explained director Jean-Luc Martinez , who took on the top job at the world 's most popular museum earlier this year . `` Why take them out ? For preservation -- we are close to the Seine and they risk being destroyed . '' Of course , Louvre-Lens is more than an expensive storage unit . It is hoped the new gallery with the internationally recognized `` Louvre '' name will reinvigorate the struggling city -- much like the Guggenheim in Bilbao , Spain , or the Tate in Liverpool , Britain . `` There was nowhere the Louvre was as needed as much as Lens , '' says the gallery 's director Xavier Dectot . New era . Until now , Lens had been better known as the place you sped through from Calais ' major port , to a more holiday-friendly destination . Ravaged by both World Wars , its cemeteries are full of the names of young soldiers -- and miners . When the minister of culture , Frederic Mitterrand , inaugurated the Louvre-Lens construction site , he marked the occasion with a minute silence for the 42 workers who lost their lives in a mining accident in 1974 . Almost four decades later , black coal has been replaced with gleaming glass . `` There was a one in a million chance for the Louvre to come here . It 's an unimaginable dream , '' said Percheron . `` The miners built France , they symbolize France . This museum is all about restoring justice to this region . ''
How did an iron - mining town in northern France become an art haven ? One year since Louvre opened sister museum in Lens , attracts 750,000 visitors . The € 150 m museum will reinvigorate depressed city with 24 % investment . Gleaming glass building designed by Japanese architectural firm Sanaa .