Impressionism, Iron Architecture ·
chronological order 9
A railway station built on the left bank of the Seine for the Universal
Exhibition of 1900, across the river from the Louvre. Victor Laloux hid
the industrial iron structure behind a Beaux-Arts stone façade so it
would not clash with its grand surroundings. The great vaulted hall, 32
metres high, covers the platforms and the trains. It became useless for
the longer trains from 1939 and nearly ended up demolished; in 1986 it
reopened as the Musée d’Orsay, home to the largest Impressionist
collection in the world. Its enormous clocks turn up in half the
photographs of Paris.
