Orsay Museum

The Orsay Museum (Musée d'Orsay) is a museum located in the centre of Paris, on the left bank of the Seine in the 7th arrondissement, in front of the Tuileries Gardens. It is housed in the former Orsay railway station, which is a huge Beaux-Arts railway station, built for the Universal Exhibition of 1900. The museum holds the art collections of paintings, photography and sculptures, from the 1848-1914 period. They include the largest in the world collection of impressionist and post-impressionist pieces by such artists as Monet, Van Gogh, Manet and Sisley. Many of the works displayed in the museum had been moved there from the Galerie nationale du Jeu de Paume before the inauguration of the museum in 1986.

The railway station in which the museum is housed was constructed for the French railway company Chemin de Fer de Paris à Orléans and designed by the architect Victor Laloux. One of the characteristic features of the building is the metal vault integrated in the building's stone exterior. For the construction of the station some 12,000 tons of metal were used, which is even more than the amount of metal required for the construction of the Eiffel Tower.

By 1961 the station was completely abandoned, no longer being suitable for the long trains. In 1978, president Giscard d'Estaing decided to transform the old building into a museum dedicated to 19th and 20th century art. Restoration of the building lasted for 7 years and the museum was finally inaugurated under the name of Musée d'Orsay on 29 November 1986 by the French president, François Mitterrand.