Paris - Musée d'Orsay

The reconstruction was carried out under the direction of Pierre Colboc, Renaud Bardon and Jean-Paul Philippon; Gae Aulenti was responsible for the interior.

The Musée d'Orsay opened its doors in 1986, with 17,200sq.m/180,000sq.ft of display space for the art of the period from 1848 to 1916. The exhibits are arranged chronologically according to broad themes and artistic techniques (including music and literature). Within the various schools the works of particular artists are so far as possible displayed together: for example there are rooms for Daumier, Courbet and van Gogh, a courtyard for Carpeaux, a terrace for Rodin. Only in the former ballroom are the sculpture and pictures selected for their appropriateness to the turn-of-the-century Rococo decor.

Contemporary events and intellectual movements forming the background to the works displayed are documented in separate rooms (French history, the press, tables of dates).

The entrance to the former Hôtel d'Orsay, on the west side of the building, leads into the reception area, with bookshops and a café. The area formerly occupied by platforms, on a lower level, is now a sculpture gallery, on either side of which, at ground floor level, are rooms devoted to painting, photography and architecture.

The glass dome of the station is still visible above the central hall (138m/150yds long, 40m/44yds wide, 32m/105ft high), but the various floors of the hotel and the station concourse have been converted into exhibition rooms.

Admirers of the Second Empire will find on the ground floor sculpture by the "Florentines", for example Ernest Christophe's "Comédie Humaine", which inspired Baudelaire's poem "Le Masque" in the "Fleurs du Mal". The fashion for polychrome sculpture and the taste for Orientalism during this period are reflected, for example, in Charles Cordier's "Nègre du Soudan".