Your visit to Orsay [antikvár]

A RAILWAY STATION, A MUSEUM At the end of last century, the Compagnie des Chemins de Fer d'Orléans purchased a piece of land on which stood the ruins of two buildings that had been burnt down during the Commune insurrection in 1871, namely the cavalry barracls and the Palais d'Orsay former seat of the Court of Auditors and the Council of State. It was a prime location, in an elegant quarter at the heart of Paris, by the Seine, facing the Tuileries and, a Utde further away, the Louvre. It was an obvious choice for the terminus serving the south-west of France, which had until then been situated at the Gare d'Austerlitz. The story of the Gare d'Orsay thus began. Immense and modern A competition was organised and, of the three architects consulted, the contract was awarded to Victor Laloux. Winner of the Grand Prix de Rome, a master of turn-of-the-century eclecticism, capable of bringing together different styles, periods and sources of inspira-don, and concealing the metal structures behind a stone façade, his plans were accepted on April 21,1898. There was very little time since the Universal Exhibition had been planned for 1900. The architect hastened the pace of the work and, over a period of two years, three hundred labourers by day and eighty by night dug fifteen tracks over three thousand six hundred and fifty metres in total. A colossal, modem passenger railway station was inaugurated on July 14. Colossal in scale: two hundred and twenty metres in length and seventy-five metres wide; a great hall in the form of a nave reaching its highest point at thirty-two metres, with a span of forty metres; twelve thousand tons of metal stmctures; one hundred and ten thousand square metres of frames, and thirty-five thousand square metres of glass panels A modern interior, with lifts, goods lifts, and electric engines Rail traffic would become increasingly heavy during the lO'i" century, with one hundred and fifty to two hundred daily trains; trains no longer powered by steam, but electricity What then was the point of building such a large hall which had lost its original function of absorbing smoke from the engines? "As smoke disappears," repUed Victor Lafoux, "the great railway halls should naturally take on the appearance of large, more luxuriously and comfortably decorated halls." The Gare d'Orsay was above all designed to impress. Entirely of stone, highly decorative A wealth of ornamental décor is displayed both inside and out. At the hean of an elegant quarter, the railway station had to blend into its urban surroundings, show off a façade with pilasters and two neoclassical paviUons, and display rich materials, such as freestone. This railway station would be "colossal, entirely of stone, highly decorative, with boldly pronounced features," emphasised the archi- View of the Universal Exhibition held in Paris, in 1900. The Gare d'Orsay at the beginning of the century. The station interior. 4 I A RAILWAY STATION. A MUSEUM