In 1900, the Orleans railway company transformed a plot of land on the banks of Paris' Seine River into the Gare d'Orsay (“Orsay Station”).
Formerly occupied by the Palais d'Orsay—a building erected under Napoleon and destroyed in 1871 by the Paris Commune, a radical and revolutionary government—this centrally located site was the perfect place to build a bustling train station.
Designed by French architects Émile Bénard, Victor Laloux, and Lucien Magne during Paris' Belle Époque, the Gare d'Orsay paired a beautiful Beaux-Arts aesthetic with top-of-the-line technologies. These included elevators and escalators, luggage ramps, and electrified tracks. Given its modernity, the station's debut was planned to coincide with the 1900 Paris Exposition. This world's fair was held to highlight the innovations and inventions that were transforming the world at the turn of the century.
Following this event, the Gare d'Orsay served as the terminus for railways out of southwestern France for nearly four decades.
Formerly occupied by the Palais d'Orsay—a building erected under Napoleon and destroyed in 1871 by the Paris Commune, a radical and revolutionary government—this centrally located site was the perfect place to build a bustling train station.
Designed by French architects Émile Bénard, Victor Laloux, and Lucien Magne during Paris' Belle Époque, the Gare d'Orsay paired a beautiful Beaux-Arts aesthetic with top-of-the-line technologies. These included elevators and escalators, luggage ramps, and electrified tracks. Given its modernity, the station's debut was planned to coincide with the 1900 Paris Exposition. This world's fair was held to highlight the innovations and inventions that were transforming the world at the turn of the century.
Following this event, the Gare d'Orsay served as the terminus for railways out of southwestern France for nearly four decades.
By 1939, however, its platforms proved to be too short for newer, longer trains, and it gradually stopped operating as a train station.
The station was then used as an expedition center, a reception center for prisoners of war, an auction house, the residence of a theater company, even as a parking garage. It was also used as a setting for several films, including The Trial of Kafka adapted by Orson Welles.
Famous for its vast collection of Impressionist paintings, Musée d'Orsay holds the largest number of famous paintings in the world by Monet, Manet, Pissarro, Morisot, and Renoir.
Facing the Louvre and the Tuileries and overlooking the Quai de Seine, it is in the center of Paris, located in a strategic location.
Back when architects designed with style. Not so much anymore and that's to bad.
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