Musée d'Orsay

Jacques Duhamel, the then Minister for Cultural Affairs, ruled against

plans to build a new hotel in its stead. The station was then put on the supplementary list of Historic Monuments and finally listed in 1978. The suggestion to turn the station into a museum came from the Directorate of the Museums of France. The idea was to build a museum which would bridge the gap between the Louvre and the National Museum of Modern Art at the Georges Pompidou Centre. This plan was accepted by Georges Pompidou and a study was commissioned in 1974. In 1978, a competition was organized to design the new museum. ACT Architecture, a team of three young architects (Pierre Colboc, Renaud Bardon and Jean-Paul Philippon, were awarded the contract which involved creating 20,000 sq. m. of new floorspace on four floors. The construction work was carried out by Bouygues.[3] In 1981, the Italian architect, Gae Aulenti was chosen to design the interior including the internal arrangement, decoration, furniture and fittings of the museum. Finally in July 1986, the museum was ready to receive its exhibits. It took 6 months to install the 2000 or so paintings, 600 sculptures and other works. The museum was officially opened in December