This splendid site across the River Seine from the Jardin des Tuileries and the Louvre has gone through three different incarnations in the last 150 years or so.

First it was a Palace but that was burned down during the Paris Commune of 1871 and the site was cleared to make way for a railway station - the Gare d’Orsay. Carefully designed to fit in with other local buildings like the Louvre with a coffered ceiling with stucco decor it opened in 1900. It was in fact the main station for the Paris-Orléans route for forty years (the original sign can be seen outside) but during the post WW2 period suffered the indignity of being put to various uses, including as an auction room and as a film set, until in 1986 when it was finally inaugurated as a museum of 19th C art.