Musee d'Orsay

In the center of Paris, on the banks of the Seine, opposite the Tuileries Gardens, the museum was installed in the former Orsay railway station.
During the 19th century, the Palais d'Orsay stood upon the site of the future Orsay station. During the violent upheaval known as the Paris Commune in 1871, the entire neighborhood was burnt down. For thirty years, the ruins of the Palais d'Orsay served as reminders of the horrors of civil war.
On the eve of the 1900 World Fair, the French government ceded the land to the Orleans railroad company, who planned to build a central terminus station on the site of the ruined Palais d'Orsay.
The station and hotel, built within two years, were inaugurated for the World Fair on July 14th, 1900. The architect Victor Laloux chose to mask the modern metallic structures with the façade of the hotel, which, built in the academic style using finely cut stone from the regions of Charente and Poitou, successfully blended in with its noble neighbors.
From 1900 to 1939, the Gare d'Orsay was the head of the southwestern French railroad network; however, after 1939, the station was to serve only the suburbs, as its platforms had become too short for the modern, longer trains that appeared with the progressive electrification of the railroads.
The Gare d'Orsay then successively served different purposes : it was used as a mailing center for sending packages to prisoners of war during the Second World War, then those same prisoners were welcomed there on their returning home after the Liberation. It was then used as a set for several films and as a haven for the Renaud-Barrault Theatre Company and for auctioneers, while the Hôtel Drouot was being rebuilt.
The hotel closed its doors on January 1st, 1973, not without having played a historic role: the General de Gaulle held the press conference announcing his return to power in its ballroom.
In 1975, the Direction des Musées de France already considered installing a new museum in the train station, in which all of the arts from the second half of the 19th century would be represented. The station, threatened with destruction and replacement by a large modern hotel complex, benefited instead from the revival of interest in nineteenth-century architecture. The official decision to build the Musée d'Orsay was taken in 1977. The building was classified a Historical Monument in 1978 and a civil commission was created to oversee the construction and organization of the museum. François Mitterrand inaugurated the new museum on December 1st, 1986, and it opened to the public on December 9th.


Also be sure to visit:
the official site
the wiki page