The Musée d’Orsay is an impressive example of adaptive reuse. Originally a train station built for the the World’s Fair of 1900, the building proved not quite large enough for newer trains and was eventually abandoned. However, it was listed as a historical monument shortly thereafter, and converted into a museum in 1986. The interior design was led by Gae Aulenti, whose diverse body of work I really admire.

Photo by The Flews

Quoted from the Musée d’Orsay website: The history of the museum, of its building is quite unusual. In the centre of Paris on the banks of the Seine, opposite the Tuileries Gardens, the museum was installed in the former Orsay railway station, built for the Universal Exhibition of 1900. So the building itself could be seen as the first “work of art” in the Musee d’Orsay, which displays collections of art from the period 1848 to 1914.

This entry was posted on Sunday, March 30th, 2008 at 8:25 pm and is filed under Places. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.