On the left bank of the Seine, opposite the Tuileries, the Musée d’Orsay occupies a building that once welcomed rail passengers into central Paris. The station and its hotel opened on 14 July 1900 for the Universal Exhibition. Designed by Victor Laloux, the complex paired a stone façade suited to the monumental neighbourhood with a modern metal-and-glass interior. The museum now makes that architectural contrast part of the visit: the vast former train hall is still the axis through which visitors encounter the collections.
The site had a complicated past before the station. The Palais d’Orsay and a cavalry barracks once stood there; the palace was burned during the Paris Commune of 1871 and remained a ruin for decades. In 1897 the railway company selected Laloux to design a new terminus for the Orléans line. For nearly four decades the station served long-distance trains, but by 1939 its platforms could no longer accommodate lengthening, electrified trains. The building moved through wartime and postwar uses before a museum project rescued it from a proposed demolition.
