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| Home > Musée d'Orsay |
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 Musée d'Orsay
District :
St Germain des Pres -
Paris
Access Map
Subway :
Solférino, Assemblée Nationale
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The rue de Lille was once the central lane of the garden belonging to Henri IV's famous queen, Marguerite de Valois. On her death in 1615, the property was sold by lots, and private mansions continued to build up the neighbourhood, while on the banks of the Seine a port known as the Grenouillière served as a resting place for lumber barges and other cargo.
The construction of Quai d'Orsay began in 1708 near the Pont Royal, and was completed a century later under Napoleon I's Empire. The aristocratic vocation of the neighbourhood was already well established at the end of the 18th century, when the Hôtel de Salm (today the Musée de la Légion d'honneur) was built, between 1782 and 1788.
On the eve of the 1900 World Fair, the French government ceded the land to the Orleans railroad company, who, disadvantaged by the remote location of the Gare d'Austerlitz, planned to build a more central terminus station on the site of the ruined Palais d'Orsay. From 1900 to 1939, the Gare d'Orsay was the head of the southwestern French railroad network. The hotel received numerous travellers in addition to welcoming associations and political parties for their banquets and meetings. However, after 1939, the station was to serve only the suburbs, as its platforms had become too short for the modern, longer trains that appeared with the progressive electrification of the railroads.
The station is superb and looks like a Palais des beaux arts...wrote the painter Edouard Detaille in 1900.
The signpost system was conceived by B. Monguzzi and J. Widmer. As for the lighting, both natural and artificial light is used, in order to create the variations in intensity needed for the different works of art presented.
Subway 12: Solférino, Assemblée Nationale
Bus: 24, 63, 68, 69, 73, 83, 84, 94.
RER C: Musée d'Orsay
Free access for less than 18 years.
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Paris hotels near Musée d'Orsay |
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Hotel Trianon Rive Gauche
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Hotel Belloy Saint Germain
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