Musee d'Orsay

The Musee d'Orsay was opened to the public on December 9th, 1986. Originally a railway station, it was a daunting project to convert it to a museum. The main highlight that the three architects that were assigned to the job was the great hall. It involved converting a glass awning to the entry way to the museum. The museum today is organized into three floors, all with galleries to explore. Some facts about the museum are listed below to give you an idea of the extravangant conversion project:
- 12,000 metric tons of metallic structures
- 35,000 square metres of glass
- 30,000 square metres of Buxy (Burgundy) stone for the covering of floors and walls
- Galleries of presentation of the artworks: 16,853 square metres
- Temporary exhibition galleries: 1,837 square metres
- Used surface: 57,400 square metres
- 66,730,187 visitors over the past 24 years
- 2,985,510 visitors in 2010

The museum is well-known because it is multidisciplinary, meaning there are different categories of art. The six disciplines at the Musee d'Orsay are: paintings, sculptures, objects d'art (decorative arts), photographs, graphic arts, and architecture. The range of dates of the artwork is from approximately 1848 to 1914. The most common works are from the impressionist and post-impressionist periods. The collections are from three sources: Louvre museum, Musee du Jeu de Paume and the National Museum of Modern Art. Two of the artists we may recognize are Claude Monet and Vincent van Gogh. Monet has 86 paintings at the Musee d'Orsay and van Gogh has 24 paintings. 

This is a picture of van Gogh's painting, Starry Night over the Rhone, which is at the museum.
Visit the museums website and use the interactive floor plan if there are any masterpieces you are particularly interested in, you can locate what floor and area they are in: http://www.musee-orsay.fr/en/tools/plan-salle.html
This website also has some great information: http://www.aviewoncities.com/paris/garedorsay.htm 

Post by Kim Kraska