The Musée d'Orsay's 30th anniversary
"The train station is superb. It looks like a Palace of Fine Arts," said the painter Edouard Detaille in 1900.
The station's majestic architecture was designed by the architect Victor Laloux for the Universal Exhibition in 1900 and took two years to build. After the building was listed on the French historic monuments register in 1978, the decision was made to turn the old station into the Musée d'Orsay. ACT Architecture was tasked with transforming the building itself while the famous Italian interior designer Gae Aulenti crafted its decorative interior. Inaugurated in 1986, the Musée d'Orsay displays artistic works from 1848 to 1914. Mirroring this fertile, dynamic and innovative period, the museum itself is constantly evolving, with the museographic renovation of the impressionist and post-impressionist galleries in 2011, and of the four-storied "Pavillon Amont" devoted to decorative arts. In 2013, the long galleries on the ground floor were also renovated and renamed the Luxembourg Rooms – a reference to the museum where the Musée d'Orsay's collections originally came from.
Visit the new rooms to celebrate the museum's 30th anniversary!